Cory Booker

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, today I would like to recognize MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, the leadership of its founders, Geoffrey T. Boisi and Raymond G. Chambers, and the expansion of the mentoring field in the past quarter century. This year, MENTOR celebrates its 25th anniversary. Its founders, Geoffrey T. Boisi and Raymond G. Chambers, were leading businessmen and philanthropists who understood the value of mentoring in their own lives. They believed passionately that the intervention of a caring adult is a critical element in the life of a young person, and they believed that every young person needs and deserves a powerful relationship that supports their growth and gives them the opportunity for success. In 1990, Boisi and Chambers recognized the powerful impact that mentoring could have on our Nation's at-risk youth, and they started a movement to increase opportunity for all young people by establishing MENTOR. The success of Boisi's and Chambers' efforts has been remarkable. That first year, approximately 300,000 youth at risk of falling off track were paired with a caring adult through a structured mentoring program. Today, 4.5 million at-risk young people will find the support that they need in a mentoring relationship while growing up. We know that research has found that young people with a mentor are 55 percent more likely to attend college and more than twice as likely to say that they held a leadership position in a club or sports team than young people without mentors. We also know that people who are mentored in their youth are 78 percent more likely to volunteer in their communities than those who are not mentored. Unfortunately, despite the tremendous growth of the mentoring movement in America over the past 25 years, 1 in 3 young people, including 9 million at-risk youth, will still reach adulthood without having a mentor of any kind. This mentoring gap isolates these young people from the meaningful connections to adults that would help them to grow and succeed. Furthermore, young people are not the only ones who gain from a mentoring relationship. While mentoring empowers our children and sets them on the path to success, it also deeply enriches the lives of the adults who are partnered with them. As a mentor myself, I can attest to this profound benefit. MENTOR has been a leader in the development of best practices to assist mentoring organizations across the country in improving their program quality. MENTOR and its network of affiliate Mentoring Partnerships has set the bar for quality in practice and has strengthened the mentoring field's capacity to deliver on the promise of mentoring. It is clear that, in the last quarter century, MENTOR, under the leadership of its volunteer board and founders, has done tremendous work championing the advancement of mentoring practice and fostering the growth of the mentoring movement. Therefore, I ask that my colleagues join me in recognizing the accomplishments of this remarkable organization in expanding the quality and availability of mentoring for all young people in the United States, in honoring the service and leadership of MENTOR cofounders Geoffrey T. Boisi and Raymond G. Chambers and their dedication to America's youth, and in encouraging Americans to discover just how rewarding mentoring can be through volunteering with their local mentoring organization.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, today I would like to recognize Rev. Dr. M. William Howard, Jr., pastor of Newark's Bethany Baptist Church. Dr. Howard has spent many decades leading the charge for change, fueled by his personal mission to utilize his faith to transform the human condition. From his Georgia roots to his work at Bethany Baptist, Dr. Howard has shown an extraordinary commitment to serving others. His work outside of the church has spanned the realms of human rights, international affairs, domestic policy, and education. In his role over the last 15 years as pastor of Bethany Baptist Church, he has worked tirelessly to expand outreach to the community as a whole. Since his first position as a youth leader conducting some of the earliest voter outreach efforts in southwest Georgia, Dr. Howard has been a beacon of light across the globe, bridging the worlds of faith and political activism. He has consistently taken on leadership roles, serving as moderator of the Programme to Combat Racism of the World Council of Churches, president of the National Council of Churches, and president of the American Committee on Africa. Through these posts, Dr. Howard has provided a powerful example of our Nation's commitment to human rights and equality. In ministering to U.S. personnel held hostage in Iran in 1979 and working for the release of U.S. Navy pilot Robert O. Goodman, Dr. Howard was a quiet but powerful force for faith and peace. Dr. Howard's record of service and leadership domestically is equally impressive. Serving as president of New York Theological Seminary, he demonstrated the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to community development by implementing joint programs in social work and urban education. He has been a board member for such organizations as the National Urban League, the Children's Defense Fund, and the Rutgers University Board of Governors. Under his leadership, the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission was instrumental in New Jersey becoming the first State to abolish the death penalty since 1976. Finally, Dr. Howard's impact on the city of Newark has been remarkable. As pastor of Bethany, Dr. Howard quickly established Bethany Cares, Inc., and through this outreach corporation, the church has actively transcended its congregation walls to serve the community at large. Such transformative work has played an integral part in strengthening the development of New Jersey's largest city. After 15 years of devoted service as pastor of Bethany Baptist Church, Dr. Howard will be retiring. It is an honor to formally recognize Dr. Howard for his unwavering commitment to creating a better world.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, today I would like to recognize Anupam Kher, an Indian actor who has inspired many through a legacy of theater and film spanning more than three decades. Anupam Kher is one of India's most prominent theatre and film personalities. His contributions to Hindi and English-language film and culture are tremendous, and his exceptional career as an actor, producer, teacher, and author will serve as an inspiration for generations to come. Born in 1955 in Himachal Pradesh, India, Anupam had a modest upbringing. After graduating from the D.A.V. School, in Shimla, Anupam attended the National School of Drama, to which he would later return as director. He was chair of Central Board of Film Certification from 2003-2004, after which the Government of India awarded him the prestigious Padma Shri for his contributions to Indian cinema. Anupam has appeared in over 100 plays and over 450 films, and he is considered one of the greatest actors of contemporary cinema. In addition to his dramatic work, Anupam is an active voice for change, and he regularly speaks out against corruption and inequality. The United Nations recently recognized his efforts, honoring him as a ``Champion of Gender Equality'' for his work on their HeForShe campaign. In 2010, he was appointed as the goodwill ambassador of the Pratham Education Foundation, which strives to improve children's education in India. It is inspiring to see an actor dedicate his time and celebrity to promote social change. It is an honor to serve a State with one of the largest Indian American diasporas in the country, and we were thrilled to host a talent such as Anupam Kher, whose career has made an indelible impression across the globe. Anupam's commitment to the arts is unwavering, and his myriad contributions to theatrical arts are a testament to his dedication to his craft. Anupam has touched countless lives and has changed the way the world views Bollywood and India. His work is worthy of the highest commendation. I hope my colleagues will join me in celebrating Anupam Kher's continued success.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, in the coming days we know that we are going to have an extraordinary visit. This is a historic occasion. We are going to gather both Houses of Congress to hear from Pope Francis. During his time in the United States, Pope Francis has chosen to do something that I think is extraordinary--to visit with the imprisoned. In his address here, he may or may not discuss the American criminal justice system, but this visit alone, which speaks to something deep within the Catholic faith, deep within the Christian religion, reflected in Matthew 25: ``I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'' This step by the Pope, to me, is an extraordinary accomplishment in bringing a further highlight to the challenges we have in the United States with our criminal justice system. The Pope has predicated his time as Pope on an ideal of mercy. His motto, ``miserando atque eligendo,'' which translates to ``to be shown mercy and be chosen,'' to me is extraordinary. I actually believe the Pope and what he is doing resonates not just in a religious sense with the Christian faith but in the American sense with our shared collective values. I have taken the time to speak on the Senate floor on numerous occasions about our criminal justice system from many perspectives, but on this occasion, I would like to talk about those moral values which do not divide us as a nation but unite us. Those are values deep within the core of our country, part of our heritage, part of our songs, our pledges, and our words. We know the criminal justice system as it stands right now has many issues. If it was just analyzed on an economic angle, it would be enough to show how this criminal justice system is out of step with who we are as a people. We know that right now we in America are imprisoning more people than anybody else on the globe. We are the ``incarceration nation'' when it comes to comparing ourselves with other global nations. We are about 5 percent of the global population but 25 percent of the global prison population. One out of every four people on the planet Earth who are incarcerated are in the United States of America. The cost of that, from a fiscal perspective, is incredible. We spend over a quarter of a trillion dollars every single year on our criminal justice system, a significant cost to American taxpayers. It is estimated that between 1980 and 2004, we would have had 20 percent less poverty in America if not for mass incarceration. Think about that for a second--the costs of poverty on our productivity. We know that only about 9 percent of children who are poor are going to go to college. There are significant costs associated with poverty, both fiscal and moral. The poverty rate would be 20 percent lower if we had incarceration rates at the same levels as our industrial peers. At a time that our roads and our bridges are crumbling, as we as a nation have seen ourselves having gone from having the best infrastructure on the globe to now being a nation with an infrastructure that is not even ranked in the top 10 globally, at a time that we have seen investment go down as a percentage of our GDP, one thing we have seen go up is our investment in the prison infrastructure. We know that between 1990 and 2005, a new prison opened in the United States every 10 days. We have seen our prison population on a Federal level go up over the last 30 years about 800 percent. Looking at this from the fiscal perspective, we know we are digging a hole for ourselves--self-inflicted economic wounds that are just unnecessary for a nation of free people. Take for example a report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. They concluded that in the year 2008 alone, ex-offender unemployment losses to our economy were the equivalent of 1.5 to 1.7 million workers or $57 billion to $65 billion annually. In other words, when our folks come out of prison, as most do, they find it so hard to reintegrate into our economy. They find it hard to start jobs as there are bars to employment, finding it hard to start businesses as there are bars to business licenses. And that loss to our economy is the equivalent of about 1.6 million workers or $57 billion to $65 billion annually. This reality, the fiscal reality alone--before we even talk about our values as a country, before we even talk about our morals--should be enough for us to find greater urgency about the need to reform our criminal justice system, especially because States in America are beginning to show that you can save taxpayer dollars by reducing incarceration levels and empowering people to succeed while simultaneously lowering the crime rate. This alone should be enough to show that we have a broken criminal justice system that violates the ideals of economic prudence and fiscal conservatism. We are digging an economic hole for ourselves. While the Pope will talk to us with a moral force during his visit, it is also important to understand that as a moral nation, the values we have put forth into the world are being violated by our criminal justice system as well. This body has been a body that has spoken with clarity on numerous moral issues--from the Civil Rights Act to the Fair Housing Act--but now we are seeing that we are failing to do what is necessary when it comes to living up to those powerful words of equal justice under the law. It is inscribed on the Supreme Court just hundreds of yards from where I am standing right now. We now know that there is no difference in drug usage and selling rates between African Americans, Whites, and Latinos. Yet our criminal justice system is incarcerating minorities in this country well disproportionate to their numbers in those drug crimes. Even at a time when we have had our last three Presidents admit to using drugs--the last two admitted to violating the drug laws--we still have a nation in which we are treating certain people differently. Take, for example, that we now know that African Americans and Whites have no difference for selling and using drugs, but Blacks are about 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for a marijuana related crime. Take, for example, that African Americans and Whites are arrested for the same crimes, and Blacks are given sentences that are about 20 percent longer than Whites for those similar crimes. African Americans are about 21 percent more likely to receive a mandatory minimum than Whites facing similar charges. This disproportionate experience under the law has created harrowing results within our Nation. There are more African Americans in jail, prison or under State or Federal supervision today than there were African Americans enslaved in 1850. Even though African Americans make up 14.7 percent of the population in my State of New Jersey, they make up 61 percent of the total correctional population. One in three African-American men born in 2001 will go to prison during their lifetime. These numbers are astonishing, and in many ways they are being fueled by a criminal justice system that, from arrests to sentencing, is treating African Americans harsher than their White peers. This value of equal justice under the law is not being fulfilled. Latinos face the same challenges. Native Americans are also grossly overrepresented in our criminal justice system, with incarceration rates that are 38 percent higher than the national average. There is no difference in proclivity for drug crimes among people of color, but we have a system that actually punishes those who are of color in different ways. We need to begin, as a Congress and a nation, to find ways to have drug laws that make sense. The explosion of incarcerations in this country was fueled by the war on drugs, and we know that certain communities are facing the harsh impact of that enforcement in ways that other communities are not. We need to reform our harsh mandatory minimum policies. For too long we have taken away judicial discretion and tied the hands of sentencing experts who can and should weigh other factors when it comes to making sentencing decisions. We need to now avoid what Congress intended-- giving these harsh sentences to people who are not drug kingpins or large players but often low-level offenders. This idea of equal opportunity as well is something that is of value and is deep within our system. Unfortunately, the trends we see in our criminal justice system aren't limited to adults and the treatment under the law, but they are also showing that our kids as well do not always face equal pathways to opportunity. Today we know that the number of children who are born to people who are incarcerated or have an incarcerated parent is growing astonishingly. Right now, 1 in 28 children is growing up with a parent in prison, and 1 in 9 African- American kids, as a result of this mass incarceration disproportionately hitting minority communities, is growing up with a parent behind bars. These kids often struggle more in school, have families who are often poorer, and have limited opportunities of success. Over half of imprisoned parents were the primary earners for their children prior to their incarceration, and a child with an incarcerated father is more likely to be suspended from school than a peer without an incarcerated father--23 percent compared to 4 percent. These are serious gulfs in opportunity being created by a broken criminal justice system. The gulfs of opportunity between young people based on race start young and actually only grow with time. For too many children, zero-tolerance discipline policies in schools across America serve as a gateway into the criminal justice system and a lifetime of devastating collateral consequences. And just as in the American criminal justice system, too many young people of color in America are falling into the trap of that school-to-prison pipeline. According to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights in March 2014, Black students were suspended at a rate three times greater than White students. On average, 5 percent of White students are suspended compared to 16 percent of Black students. Students who have been suspended or expelled as a part of their school's disciplinary policy are 3 times as likely to become involved in the juvenile justice system within the next year. There is evidence showing that kids of different races face the harshness of those policies in different ways. In other words, minority students are often treated harshly while others see leniency. We need to begin to enact commonsense policies that provide for equal opportunity--those commonsense policies that don't lead to suspension or involvement with police officers when in the past the infraction typically would have been dealt with the school internally. We need to find a system where a child's one mistake does not become a lifetime sentence, where children are empowered to succeed and not fear a retribution that destabilizes their lives. We also know that it is important that we begin to think: Are we a nation of second chances? Are we a nation where words such as redemption and mercy have meaning? Are we a nation that can live up to these ideals where just because you fall down and stumble and make a mistake, you cannot be someone who can still stand up again and make your way? We know that every single year approximately 600,000 Americans finish their prison sentences after paying their debt to society and reenter their communities. They often find themselves unable to work, to vote, to get back to school or to get a loan. The collateral consequences are extraordinary. The American Bar Association has identified over 46,000 collateral consequences that impact people with criminal records. About 60 to 70 percent of them are employment-related. In other words, even though we are saying to people who have paid their debt that they now need to get back to work, we are actually putting up bars which prevent them from doing so. They are finding it hard to get a job, get a business license, get a loan, or get a Pell grant, and if they fall and stumble, they often find it hard to even get food stamps or get the social safety net that often keeps people from abject desperation. These realities place too many roadblocks in the way of people coming home. During Pope Francis's visits to prisons, he is said to have asked himself: Why did God allow that I should not be here? But for the grace of God. In advance of his visit, I believe we should be asking ourselves: What do these ideals of mercy and redemption mean to us--this idea that when we see people who are broken by society, we should understand that we should be investing in their success? It actually not only makes moral sense to do so, but it makes sense to do so because we will reap the economic benefit. If you take, for example, Americans who are suffering from addiction, we now know that $1 invested in people with addiction to get treatment produces a benefit in reducing interactions with the police and incarceration by $4 to $7. Yet the overwhelming majority of people with drug addictions do not get treatment. Not only is that fiscally unsound, but that makes no sense in the ideals of our morals as a nation, that we should help people who are broken by disease. This is the point we have come to as a nation, where we know that doing the morally right thing actually helps to save the dollars of our taxpayers so that we can keep that in our own pockets or invest them in areas that we so desperately need. Take, for example, a simple thing that companies around this country, such as Bed Bath & Beyond and Starbucks, are doing but we don't do in the Federal Government--this commonsense idea that those who have paid their debt will be given a level playing field and a fair shot to get a job to prove that they are worthy of work. Some people call this Ban the Box, something that 18 States have done. But here in the Federal Government, we still make people--right at the point of application-- check the box and say that they have been formally incarcerated, which means, for many Americans, that it gives them 50 to 60 percent less chance of even getting an interview or getting an opportunity to demonstrate their worth and make their case. We know that simple things such as moving that time of disclosure of a previous criminal conviction to later in the process could elevate the chances of getting more people to work. And when they get to work, they begin to be there for their families, their kids, our economy, and they become productive, as opposed to what we have now, which over time is a recidivism rate--the rate at which people go back to prison--that is upwards of 75 percent, costing us again billions of dollars as taxpayers. This system is broken. It makes no economic sense, but more importantly, it violates our ideals as a nation of equal justice under the law, the ideal of having a second chance in our country, and the ideal of equal opportunity for all. We must now embrace the urgency of the moment. To have a wasteful system that is broken, that further harms and injures people with illnesses--whether it be mental health disorder or an addiction--that aggravates them with practices such as putting children in solitary confinement--all of these things violate our principals as a nation, and it is time for us to join together and embrace change. I feel honored that right now in this country there is an emerging bipartisan and nonpartisan coalition around criminal justice reform. We see people from all across the political perspective approaching it from different perspectives--from Christian Evangelicals to fiscal conservatives to civil libertarians to civil rights activists--all beginning to say the system is morally bankrupt. It is bankrupting States and our Nation. It is a violation of who we are as a country, and it just makes no sense. It was James Baldwin who once said: There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now. With this visit from the Pope and his further spotlighting our criminal justice system, let us find that moral urgency in our Nation. Let us find the grit that we have shown in the past for overcoming injustice. Let us join together and begin with even more urgency to do the hard work of correcting the ills within our criminal justice system, of fixing what is broken, and making right in America that which we hold so dear--that we are a nation indeed with liberty and justice for all. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I wish to celebrate the remarkable life and accomplishments of a great American and New Jerseyan, Lieutenant Calvin Spann. As a boy in Rutherford, NJ, Calvin was amazed by the miracle of flight, watching as planes took off from nearby Teterboro Airport. This early passion for aviation, coupled with a determination to prove that as an African American he was as capable as anyone to fly a plane, would eventually motivate him to take a courageous risk as a young man. Lieutenant Spann enlisted in the Army Air Forces at a time when all branches of the U.S. military were still segregated. He left home behind when he was assigned by the Army to attend Flight Training School at Tuskegee University in Alabama. In earning his wings at Tuskegee and serving in Europe during World War II as a member of the 100th Fighter Squadron and 332nd Fighter Group, Lieutenant Spann proved not only that he could fly but that he could do it with unusual bravery and skill. Lieutenant Spann flew 26 missions during the war, including what was at the time the longest bomber escort mission in history. Lieutenant Spann received numerous awards for his military service, including--much too late--a Congressional Gold Medal in 2006. The distinction with which Lieutenant Spann and his fellow Tuskegee Airmen served paved the way for President Truman to desegregate the U.S. military in 1948. Lieutenant Spann, unfortunately, returned home at a time in which racial discrimination still outweighed his distinguished military service. Trying to build flight hours in an effort to remain a pilot, he was denied access to planes at Teterboro, and commercial airlines would not hire him simply because of his race. With characteristic resilience, he earned a living for himself and his family as a factory supervisor, sales representative, restaurant owner, and real estate broker. Fifty years later, he was inducted into the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame. Lieutenant Spann pushed against a system that held all Americans back by denying some individuals the ability to contribute their talent and passion simply because of their identity. The United States of America is a better, stronger country because of Lieutenant Spann. For having the courage to pursue his dreams in the face of tremendous obstacles and at great risk to himself, Lieutenant Spann deserves our deepest respect and gratitude. May he rest in peace.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I wish to introduce the Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act of 2015 or the Fair Chance Act. This bipartisan bill has the support of Senators Johnson, Baldwin, Ernst, and Brown, and I thank them for their support. Today, a bipartisan House companion bill to the Fair Chance Act has also been introduced. I thank Congressmen Cummings, Issa, Jackson Lee, Blumenauer, Watson Coleman, Richmond, Conyers, and Scott for their leadership on this issue. Everyone deserves the dignity of work and the opportunity for a second chance to earn a living. But far too many Americans who return home from behind bars have to disclose convictions on their initial employment application or initial job interview that often serve as insurmountable barriers to employment. This legislation would ensure that people with convictions, who have paid their debt to society and want to turn their lives around, have a fair chance to work. By encouraging Federal employers to focus on an individual's qualifications and merit, and not solely on past mistakes, the Fair Chance Act would remove burdensome and unnecessary obstacles that prevent formerly incarcerated people from reaching their full potential and contributing to society. It would also help reduce recidivism, combat poverty, and prevent violence in our communities by helping people get back to work. In the last 30 years, our prison population has exploded. Since 1980, the Federal prison population has grown by nearly 800 percent and our total prison population exceeds more than 2.2 million people. Taxpayers are wasting billions of dollars on overcrowded prisons that crush priceless human potential with lengthy prison terms that have failed to make our communities safer. Yet, more than 90 percent of those sentenced to prison eventually get out and return home. Indeed, over 600,000 people are released from prison each year. Equally troubling, a high number of Americans living in our communities have criminal convictions. About 70 million people in the U.S. have been arrested or convicted of a crime. That means, almost one in three adults in the U.S. has a criminal record. In fact, in the Nation's capital alone an estimated 1 in 10 D.C. residents has a criminal record. The American Bar Association has identified over 44,500 ``collateral consequences''--or legal constraints--placed on what individuals with records can do once they have been released from prison. Of those, up to 70 percent are related to employment. Without a job, it is impossible to provide for oneself and one's family. Yet, thousands of people with criminal convictions reenter society each year without employment. According to a recent New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll, men with criminal records account for about 34 percent of all nonworking men between the ages of 25 and 54. In addition, a landmark study by Professor Devah Pager, of Harvard University's Department of Sociology, found that a criminal record reduces the likelihood of a callback or a job offer by nearly 50 percent for men in general. African-American men with criminal records have been 60 percent less likely to receive a callback or job offer than those with criminal records. In the land of opportunity, a criminal conviction should not be a life sentence to unemployment. Today, a criminal conviction is a modern day scarlet letter that-- because of the so-called ``War on Drugs''--has had a disproportionate impact on communities of color. For example, African-American men with a conviction are 40 percent less likely to receive an interview. And the likelihood that Latino men with a record will receive an interview or be offered a job is 18 percent smaller than the likelihood for white men. Creating employment opportunities for our returning citizens benefits public safety. With little hope of obtaining a decent paying job, returning citizens are often left with few options but to return to a life of crime. A 2011 study in the Justice Quarterly concluded that the lack of employment was the single most negative determinant of recidivism. A report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that of the over 400,000 state prisoners released in 2005, 67.8 percent of them were re-arrested within 3 years of their release. And 76.6 percent were re-arrested within 5 years of their release. Creating employment opportunities for our returning citizens also strengthens our economy. Poor job prospects for people with records reduced our nation's gross domestic product in 2008 between $57 billion and $65 billion. With an integrated global economy that is becoming more and more competitive, it is imperative that we encourage sound policy that promotes the gainful employment of Americans. A formerly incarcerated person--and later President--named Nelson Mandela once said, ``For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.'' The American criminal justice system is predicated on this ideal, the belief that an individual who has committed a crime can, and should be, reformed into a productive member of society over their time of imprisonment. The ideal that, once released from prison, that individual should have the opportunity to enrich himself and his community upon his reentry into society. The Fair Chance Act would help fix unemployment barriers for formerly incarcerated people and bring America closer to truly being a land of opportunity for all. It would ban the Federal Government--including the executive, legislative, and judicial branches--from requesting criminal history information from applicants until they reach the conditional offer stage. This bill strikes the right balance. It would allow qualified people with criminal records to get their foot in the door and be judged on their own merit. At the same time, the legislation would allow employers to know an individual's criminal history before the job applicant is hired. This bill would also prohibit Federal contractors from requesting criminal history information from candidates for positions within the scope of Federal contracts until the conditional offer stage. Companies that do business with the Federal Government and receive Federal funds should espouse good hiring practices. The Fair Chance Act would permit Federal contractors to inquire about criminal history earlier in the application process if a candidate would have access to classified information. The legislation includes important exceptions for sensitive positions where criminal history inquiries are necessary earlier in the application process. Exceptions are included for positions involving classified information, sensitive national security duties, armed forces, and law enforcement jobs, and for when criminal history information for a job is legally required prior to a conditional offer. Finally, this bill would require the Department of Labor, U.S. Census Bureau, and Bureau of Justice Statistics to issue a report on the employment statistics of formerly incarcerated individuals. Currently, no comprehensive tracking of data on the employment histories of people with convictions exists. This provision would change that and allow us to better understand the scope of the problem people with convictions face when trying to find a job. Many of the reforms in this bill have been urged for years. In 2011, then-Attorney General Eric Holder called for making the Federal Government a model employer. And the White House's My Brother Keeper's Initiative has endorsed fair chance reforms. Earlier this year, I was proud to join 26 other Senators in a letter to the President urging an executive order that would ban Federal contractors from asking job applicants about their criminal histories. But more must be done. States and localities have led the way on providing people with convictions meaningful job opportunities, and the Federal Government must catch up. So far 18 States, including Georgia and Nebraska, and over 100 cities and counties have taken steps to prohibit government agencies from asking job applicants about criminal convictions until later in the process. Some of the Nation's largest companies already have fair chance policies. Companies such as Wal-Mart, Target, Starbucks, Koch Industries, Home Depot, and Bed, Bath and Beyond, have reserved the criminal history inquiry until later in the hiring process. These companies know that creating economic opportunity for people with criminal history is not just good policy, it's good business. This bipartisan legislation has the support of numerous groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Employment Law Project, the Center for Urban Families, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, and the National Black Prosecutors Association. We are a nation built on liberty and justice for all. Once a person's sentence has ended, they should not continue to be forever shackled by their past. That turns the concept of justice upside down. It is contrary to who we are and what we stand for. President George W. Bush once said that ``America is the land of second chance, and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.'' But far too often the road back into the community is paved with poverty, hopelessness, and unemployment. When President Obama commuted the offenses of 46 drug offenders earlier this year, he also affirmed that ``we have to ensure that as [formerly incarcerated people] do their time and pay back their debt to society, that we are increasing the possibility that they can turn their lives around.'' The ideal that America is a place that values second chances is bipartisan and rooted deeply in our country's history, and the opportunity to turn one's life around is a fundamental principle of justice. With the introduction of this important criminal justice reform legislation, we aim to fulfill the promise of our great democracy and make access to the American Dream real for thousands of Americans who have paid their debts to society. The Fair Chance Act would give so many Americans a fair chance to obtain Federal jobs or work with Federal contractors. It would improve public safety, boost our economy, and adhere to our shared values of liberty and justice for all. I urge my fellow Senators to join me in supporting this important criminal justice reform bill.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I am honored to serve a State with one of the largest Indian American diasporas in the country. The Indian diaspora community in New Jersey is an active, vocal and engaged constituency whose contributions to the State reach across all sectors. When given the opportunity, the very first caucus I joined in the Senate was the U.S.-India caucus. Soon after I joined the caucus, I had the opportunity to meet Prime Minister Modi during his visit to the United States. His visit signaled a meaningful moment in the relations between the United States and India. It became clearer that the oldest and newest democracies can forge a transformational relationship to leverage the historic opportunities before us. Together, the United States and India represent over one-fifth of the world's population and share long-term strategic imperatives in the areas of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, social and economic development, and regional and global security that are rooted in our shared commitment to democratic ideals. President Obama has aptly referred to this relationship as the ``defining partnership of the 21st century.'' As the United States pursues greater clean energy production and sustainable manufacturing here at home, we can and should take advantage of opportunities to further collaborate on technologically advanced clean energy solutions. Together, we can leverage both American and Indian assets to address the challenges both our countries face in job creation, social mobility, and clean energy. Prime Minister Modi has also emphasized the importance of sustainable growth and ensuring that diversified, environmentally conscious energy sources are made accessible to all Indians. I am encouraged by Prime Minister Modi's commitment to economic and social policies that not only invest in infrastructure but that also develop India's human capacity. With half of its population under the age of 25 and a recent election that saw a 66-percent voter turnout, it is clear that India is set to harness the potential of its most valuable resource--its young people. In order to compete in a global economy, the United States and India must both expand opportunities for youth education and employment. By engaging private sector actors in our mutual development goals, I believe together we can address these challenges and turn them into opportunities for cooperation. As this partnership continues to grow, so will the benefits for both of our countries and for New Jersey. The Indian American population in New Jersey has grown by 73 percent in the past decade, and many Indian Americans serve our state as industry and community leaders. New Jersey is the No. 1 benefactor of Indian investment in job creation, with approximately 9,278 jobs and over $1 billion in investment in a variety of sectors from telecom and technology to healthcare and manufacturing. As the Senate adjourns for the summer recess, I do not want to miss the opportunity to highlight India Day, which will be observed next week. India Day celebrates the rich history and legacy of India's contributions to communities across the United States. On August 10, I will have the distinct honor and privilege to welcome Ambassador Singh to New Jersey. I look forward to working with Ambassador Singh as we partner together to foster investment opportunities, create collaborations between our world-renowned higher education institutions, and cultivate platforms to facilitate volunteerism and giving. I look forward to fostering the continued growth of the strong relationship between New Jersey and India.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, today I am proud to stand here with Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Dick Durbin in introducing the Maintaining dignity and Eliminating unnecessary Restrictive Confinement of Youths Act of 2015, or the MERCY Act. This bipartisan bill would prohibit juvenile detention facilities from placing federally adjudicated delinquents in solitary confinement and would limit the use of such confinement for all juveniles in federal pretrial detainment. Prolonged use of solitary confinement of young people often results in severe psychological harm and it is time the federal government leads on this issue and bans the practice. The juvenile justice system was created because it has always been understood that children are different than adults and need special protection. It was founded on the principle that youth are malleable and, therefore, the focus should be on rehabilitation rather than punishment. Adolescents are still developing psychologically and physiologically and have different needs than adults. In fact, research has shown that brains in humans do not fully develop in most individuals until the age of 25, which underscores the fragility of these young Americans. Unfortunately, our juvenile justice system has lost its way and the emphasis has shifted from one of rehabilitation to punishment. Children are finding themselves trapped in a criminal justice system that does more harm than good and nowhere is that more evident than in the practice of solitary confinement. In 2011 alone, more than 95,000 youth were held in prisons and jails, and a significant number were held in isolation. In 2013, the Department of Justice found that 47 percent of juvenile detention centers locked youth in solitary confinement for more than four hours at a time, and some held youth for up to 23 hours a day with no human interaction. Words can hardly explain the horrors many children face while placed in isolation. Young people held in solitary suffer from resounding psychological and neurological damage, including depression, hallucinations, paranoia, anger, and anxiety. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently commented on the practice of solitary confinement in an opinion and said, ``The penal system has a solitary confinement regime that will bring you to the edge of madness, perhaps to madness itself.'' The negative impact that this practice can have on youth is evidenced by the fact that studies have shown that half of all suicides by juveniles in detention facilities occurred in isolation. Medical experts to civil and human rights advocates have made calls to end this horrible practice. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture called for the practice to be banned across the globe. Despite the extensive data that demonstrates the harmful nature of solitary, the United States continues to use solitary confinement at alarming rates. It is time the United States catch up to international standards and ban the use of unnecessary juvenile solitary confinement. The MERCY Act would prohibit the use of solitary confinement of youth adjudicated delinquent in the Federal system, unless it is a temporary response to a serious risk of harm to the juvenile or others. Additionally, it would preclude the use of solitary confinement of any youth awaiting trial in federal court regardless of whether that person is being tried as an adult or juvenile. The bill ensures that before a juvenile is placed in room confinement, the staff member must use the least restrictive techniques, including de-escalation techniques or discussions with a qualified mental health professional. It mandates that juveniles be informed of why the room confinement placement occurred and that release will occur upon the youth regaining self- control or a certain period of time has elapsed. The Mercy Act limits solitary confinement on juveniles that pose a risk of harm to others to no more than 3 hours and to juveniles who pose a risk of harm to themselves to no more than half an hour. Finally, after the maximum periods of confinement expires, the bill mandates that juveniles be transferred to a facility where appropriate services can be provided. If we truly want our criminal justice system to reflect our founding principles as a nation of liberty and justice for all, we must promote a more compassionate, common sense approach to rehabilitation that helps restore promise in our young people. It is time we ban the solitary confinement of youth and I urge the speedy passage of the bipartisan MERCY Act.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, today I am proud to stand here with Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Dick Durbin in introducing the Maintaining dignity and Eliminating unnecessary Restrictive Confinement of Youths Act of 2015, or the MERCY Act. This bipartisan bill would prohibit juvenile detention facilities from placing federally adjudicated delinquents in solitary confinement and would limit the use of such confinement for all juveniles in federal pretrial detainment. Prolonged use of solitary confinement of young people often results in severe psychological harm and it is time the federal government leads on this issue and bans the practice. The juvenile justice system was created because it has always been understood that children are different than adults and need special protection. It was founded on the principle that youth are malleable and, therefore, the focus should be on rehabilitation rather than punishment. Adolescents are still developing psychologically and physiologically and have different needs than adults. In fact, research has shown that brains in humans do not fully develop in most individuals until the age of 25, which underscores the fragility of these young Americans. Unfortunately, our juvenile justice system has lost its way and the emphasis has shifted from one of rehabilitation to punishment. Children are finding themselves trapped in a criminal justice system that does more harm than good and nowhere is that more evident than in the practice of solitary confinement. In 2011 alone, more than 95,000 youth were held in prisons and jails, and a significant number were held in isolation. In 2013, the Department of Justice found that 47 percent of juvenile detention centers locked youth in solitary confinement for more than four hours at a time, and some held youth for up to 23 hours a day with no human interaction. Words can hardly explain the horrors many children face while placed in isolation. Young people held in solitary suffer from resounding psychological and neurological damage, including depression, hallucinations, paranoia, anger, and anxiety. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently commented on the practice of solitary confinement in an opinion and said, ``The penal system has a solitary confinement regime that will bring you to the edge of madness, perhaps to madness itself.'' The negative impact that this practice can have on youth is evidenced by the fact that studies have shown that half of all suicides by juveniles in detention facilities occurred in isolation. Medical experts to civil and human rights advocates have made calls to end this horrible practice. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture called for the practice to be banned across the globe. Despite the extensive data that demonstrates the harmful nature of solitary, the United States continues to use solitary confinement at alarming rates. It is time the United States catch up to international standards and ban the use of unnecessary juvenile solitary confinement. The MERCY Act would prohibit the use of solitary confinement of youth adjudicated delinquent in the Federal system, unless it is a temporary response to a serious risk of harm to the juvenile or others. Additionally, it would preclude the use of solitary confinement of any youth awaiting trial in federal court regardless of whether that person is being tried as an adult or juvenile. The bill ensures that before a juvenile is placed in room confinement, the staff member must use the least restrictive techniques, including de-escalation techniques or discussions with a qualified mental health professional. It mandates that juveniles be informed of why the room confinement placement occurred and that release will occur upon the youth regaining self- control or a certain period of time has elapsed. The Mercy Act limits solitary confinement on juveniles that pose a risk of harm to others to no more than 3 hours and to juveniles who pose a risk of harm to themselves to no more than half an hour. Finally, after the maximum periods of confinement expires, the bill mandates that juveniles be transferred to a facility where appropriate services can be provided. If we truly want our criminal justice system to reflect our founding principles as a nation of liberty and justice for all, we must promote a more compassionate, common sense approach to rehabilitation that helps restore promise in our young people. It is time we ban the solitary confinement of youth and I urge the speedy passage of the bipartisan MERCY Act.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I join Senators Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham in introducing the Safer Officers and Safer Citizens Act of 2015. This critical legislation moves our Nation a step forward in rebuilding the trust gap between law enforcement and communities by creating a Federal grant program to supply local, State, and tribal law enforcement with body-worn cameras. I thank Senator Scott for his work on this bill and his leadership on such a critical issue. Trust between law enforcement and communities is critical to the foundation of our democracy. It reinforces the legitimacy of the State to the people that the State serves. It assures the public that the people sworn to protect them will do so honorably or be held accountable when they don't. It builds transparency and promotes open government by shining a spotlight on police-citizen interaction so that no misconduct occurs in the dark. It ensures police officers that the community will see their side and not cast unmerited aspersions. But recent police-citizen encounters in our Nation have created a trust deficit between law enforcement and the communities that they serve. Over the past year, troubling use of force incidents have occurred between police officers and citizens in places like Ferguson, MO, Baltimore, MD, and North Charleston, SC. These events spurred a national dialogue about the state of policing in America, and created an urgency for body-worn cameras. When I served as mayor of New Jersey's largest city, I saw firsthand the difficulties law enforcement faced in keeping our communities safe. The overwhelming majority of police officers in the United States are decent and hardworking Americans who have dedicated their lives to a greater calling. But let us not mistake ourselves--we have a problem in our country. Over the past few years, trust has eroded between law enforcement and the communities they serve. The unfortunate actions of a few have cast a long shadow over the good work of many. I am also concerned that systemic issues have contributed to eroding the trust between communities and police. It comes from decades of a failed War on Drugs. Minority communities are routinely subject to stop and frisk policies. People are stopped for ``suspicious'' activities like acting too nervous, acting too calm, dressing casually, or wearing expensive clothes or jewelry. The fact is that five times as many Whites report using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug crimes ten times that of whites. Of course a lack of trust will exist when our criminal justice system as a whole disproportionately targets minorities. It is time we start rebuilding that trust. This bill is about transparency. The Safer Officer and Safer Citizens Act of 2015 would require that the Department of Justice give priority to States, localities, and tribal areas that have developed comprehensive body- worn camera policies that address such issues as privacy, data retention, and victim protection. It would also give priority to jurisdictions that consult victim and juvenile advocacy groups, labor organizations, civic leadership, law enforcement professionals, and the defense bar. The bill requires States, localities, and tribal units to collect data on the effectiveness of body cameras. Body-worn cameras will protect communities from police abuses of power and simultaneously protect police from false complaints. I am proud to join with Senators Scott and Graham in introducing the Safer Officer and Safer Citizens Act of 2015, and I urge its speedy passage.

Mr. BOOKER

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

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, trucking is critical to the movement of goods to consumers across the country. The trucking industry is a vital part of our economy. But we must also strive to ensure that goods are moved as safely as possible. Each year, nearly 4,000 lives are lost due to truck crashes on our Nation's highways. Research by the National Transportation Safety Board has shown that many of these crashes could have been prevented. We owe it to the individuals and families affected by these tragedies to take every step possible to reduce the risks and prevent needless crashes. That is why I have introduced the Truck Safety Act of 2015, legislation that will modernize our truck safety standards and embrace new technologies that can help reduce crashes across the country. This legislation includes a provision to require collision-avoidance technologies in commercial vehicles involved in interstate commerce. Many of the fatalities that occur today are the result of rear-end collisions that could have been prevented with current technology. The technology can detect an impending collision or unsafe lane departure and automatically apply corrective action if a human operator is unable to do so. The U.S. Department of Transportation has been working on this issue for several years and many companies have adopted these technologies. It is far past time that these lifesaving devices were required in all new trucks. This legislation also updates the minimum liability insurance for trucking companies in order to ensure victims of crashes are able to fully recover the cost of their damages. In a report to Congress, the Department of Transportation found compelling evidence to reevaluate the current minimums. In some crashes, the costs to the victims far exceed the current minimum of $750,000. This can leave the victim uncompensated for damages. Minimum insurance levels have not been raised since the 1980s, so my legislation requires an immediate increase to the trucking minimum insurance level, requires annual adjustment for inflation, and requires the Department of Transportation to evaluate whether minimum insurance levels need to be increased further. Another provision in this legislation would allow the Secretary to require trucking employers to compensate drivers for time spent on duty but not driving. Currently, drivers are compensated for miles driven, not hours worked. This sets up an unsafe incentive structure in which drivers are penalized for taking the rest they need in order to drive safely. Drivers in this country play a critical role in ensuring Americans get the products they rely on for everyday life. They should not be forced to choose between resting to ensure their safety and feeding their families at home. The Truck Safety Act is an important step to protect our truck drivers, individuals, and families traveling on our Nation's highways. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation that will improve the lives of New Jerseyans and individuals across the country.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I am grateful to Senator Bennet. Senator Bennet and I met around education issues. Senator Bennet led the largest public school system in the State of Colorado. Senator Bennet has been in the weeds of education for years, if not decades. I am grateful that Senator Bennet began his remarks by saying all of the things that have been wrong with No Child Left Behind. That was a bad piece of legislation. We saw the aspects of it that were causing problems and that have created a bipartisan push to fix them. I want to give credit to Senator Lamar Alexander and Senator Patty Murray for joining together and doing the things necessary to improve the bill. The culture of education has shifted in this country, from high-stakes testing to looking at measures that made no sense to creating artificial deadlines that could not be met or even doing things that undermined the very goals and aspirations that we have for our country, which is to lead the globe in educational excellence. So, I am encouraged by Senator Bennet and myself and the majority of this body who agree that this legislation needs to be changed. It is a left-right coalition that is encouraging to me. But I want to echo Senator Bennet's concerns about a problem that is not being addressed--that as the pendulum swings away from the problems of No Child Left Behind, we not create new ones that cut against the very ideals with which this legislation was put in place by Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson said clearly that this was a bill to bridge the gap in this country between help and the helpless, for those children who are suffering on the educational margins of our society, drowning in the eddies of educational lack of opportunity, caught in the quicksand of poverty and race, and with challenges that undermine and contribute to the dysfunction and inequality in our Nation. This was to be the bridge. It is why this body acted under President Johnson. So now, Senator Bennet, I have a distressed heart, because what this amendment we are trying to put forward does is to allow us to get to a point where we are now not even putting a spotlight on where we are failing to live up to our values. This amendment calls for us to at least acknowledge that there are children in our country who are stuck in so-called dropout factories, children who are perpetually underachieving, and schools that are failing the genius of our children. What this amendment was seeking to do was to say that we cannot ignore our children, we cannot turn our backs on these children, we cannot turn over and say it doesn't exist, because we do have a problem in our Nation. What anguishes me about this problem is that the children we are turning our backs on and not focusing on are children that are poor and children that are disproportionately minority. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, he said that what we will have to repent for in this day and age is not the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people. I hear time and again that we love our children in America. Well, if we love them, we should do something about the challenges that are afflicting a small percentage of our kids who do not get the educational environment they deserve. This is a peculiar form of American insanity--insanity being defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We are not going to change this problem of perpetual failure in too many of our schools that affect poor and minorities by not having some attention to that problem. Let's be clear. We have learned lessons. This amendment No. 2241, the ESEA accountability amendment, does not do the things that this body in its majority thinks should no longer be done by the Federal Government. Let me be clear. This amendment does not reinstate any type of adequate yearly progress, or AYP. In fact, the underlying bill is repealed. AYP is repealed. It does not establish artificial deadlines such as No Child Left Behind did, saying that all children will be proficient by 2014. It does not establish Federal goals for our students. States will have the prerogative to set their own. It does not impose test-based accountability on States. States must include a range of factors in their State-designed accountability systems. It does not require schools to implement a one-size-fits-all intervention. Local districts will design the intervention for underperforming schools. This legislation is not prescriptive. This legislation is not Washington telling local districts what to do. This amendment does not design programs. It simply says that there must be a commitment made when there are these dropout factories and when there are these populations that are not being served to ensure that States identify certain low-performing schools so that students in these schools receive the support they need. It would require locally designed, evidence-based interventions to schools identified in the following categories: the lowest performing 5 percent of our schools; high schools where less than two-thirds of students graduate; and schools where subgroups, including low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, and English learners miss State-established goals on multiple measures for 2 consecutive years. This amendment says that we cannot ignore those children whom we are failing to serve, and that we can't turn our back on these kids. We salute this flag and say ``liberty and justice for all.'' Well, every issue that I hear discussed in this august body cannot be dealt with unless we deal with all children. The achievement gap in America will not be addressed unless we focus on all children. The poverty gap in America will not be addressed unless we focus on all children. The opportunity gap in America will not be addressed unless we deal with all children. Issues that I am passionate about such as mass incarceration will not be addressed unless we focus on all children. And the competitive economy--the productivity of our Nation--will not reach its full strength unless we focus on all children. So I am distressed today that this body will put into place a piece of educational legislation that ignores the very children to whom this original legislation was dedicated to serving years ago. We cannot be a great nation if we have parts of our country--be they neighborhoods or schools--that fail to experience what should be the bedrock of our country: equal opportunity, a great education, and the opportunity to succeed through one's grit, sweat, and hard work. We don't have that now. If we in this body create legislation that pours millions of dollars into the States and then say that if States choose to ignore these kids, if States choose to turn their backs on the children who need them most, if States don't even want to put forward an idea of how to address this persistent problem, and we are OK, then to me we belie the oath we took, the pledge we gave to bring justice to all children. We speak of accountability in this country. Well, we should be accountable to the government dollars that we spend for America. We should be accountable for the ideals of this Nation. So I hope I can get my colleagues to support this bill that Senator Murphy and Senator Bennet are leading so well. I hope we can stand up in a chorus of conviction in this body, saying that every single child--no matter what station in life, no matter how poor your parents are, no matter what your background, color, creed or religion--can have hope and opportunity in our public schools.

Mr. BOOKER. Before our leader on this amendment speaks, Senator Murphy, I do want to echo what Senator Bennet said. He has been leading this charge in a bipartisan manner, pulling people together trying to get this across. I just want to echo that last point that Senator Bennet made. We as a nation have this ideal that America is the best country if you are poor to be born into; that you can make it here. This is the country--Statue of Liberty, give us your tired, your hungry, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores. This is the country you can make it in. Well, unfortunately, in social mobility, which is a measurable index--the ability for somebody to make it out of poverty into the middle class--we have fallen. We have fallen on that list compared to our peers from other nations. If you just have the simple goal of making it out of poverty, America is no longer the No. 1 country to do that. The principle reason for this is that the tried and true pathway to the middle class must be the schoolhouse door. That path must lead through educational systems. If our children don't have that access or if we leave some children behind, we shut those doors to quality education. Then it is an affront to the very ideal of the American dream, and we are failing the purpose, the greatness, the glory that is America. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, each year, tens of thousands of lives are lost and millions more are injured in collisions on our Nation's highways. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 40 percent of all traffic fatalities involve alcohol. This preventable behavior continues to impose a terrible toll on our families and our Nation. To eradicate drunk driving from our roads, we must change our Nation's culture around stepping behind the wheel after consuming alcohol. A major way to enact this change is to encourage and celebrate the role of designated drivers--those who make a commitment to remain sober to ensure that the passengers in their vehicle return home safely at the end of the night. For this reason, I rise today to honor the 15th anniversary of the HERO Campaign, which works to create partnerships that encourage and support designated drivers. The HERO Campaign was created in memory of U.S. Navy ENS John Elliott, a New Jersey resident and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Ensign Elliott was an outstanding citizen and Naval cadet. In each of his 4 years at Annapolis, Elliott was selected by his peers to serve as a human education resource officer, or HERO, to mentor fellow members of his company. At graduation, Elliott was honored as the outstanding HERO in his class. On July 22, 2000, Ensign Elliott was driving to his home in Egg Harbor Township, NJ with his girlfriend when his vehicle was struck by an oncoming vehicle that crossed into his lane. The driver of that vehicle was operating under the influence of alcohol. Along with Ensign Elliott, that driver was killed in the collision. Shortly after Ensign Elliott's life came to its untimely end, his parents, Bill and Muriel Elliott, started the HERO Campaign. The HERO Campaign is a non-profit organization that brings together schools, professional sports teams, law enforcement, taverns and restaurants, and community groups to recognize and encourage designated drivers. Since its inception, the HERO Campaign has registered more than 100,000 designated drivers at sports stadiums, concerts, schools, and colleges in 7 States. In New Jersey, the HERO Campaign contributed to a 35.4 percent decline in alcohol-related driving fatalities in the general population and a 65.1 percent decline for those under 21 years of age. Truly, the accomplishments of the HERO Campaign are nothing less than heroic. But their work is not done yet. The ultimate goal of the HERO Campaign is to register one million designated drivers across our Nation, and to ensure that having a designated driver before stepping out for the night becomes as automatic as putting on a seatbelt when getting into the car. As Bill Elliott says, the message is simple: ``Who's your HERO tonight?'' I can safely say that, to me, Bill and Muriel Elliott and their colleagues at the HERO Campaign are my heroes this and every night. I commend their accomplishments and support their efforts to save lives by helping others realize their heroic potential as designated drivers.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise today in support of my amendment, which I am offering with Senator Inhofe, Senator Grassley, Senator Ayotte, and Senator Wyden. The homeless population is at an alltime high in our country, with 1 in 45 children--or 1.6 million--homeless in the United States every year. Homeless students experience a significant educational disruption, and only about 11.4 percent are proficient in math and 14.6 percent proficient in reading compared to their peers. Homeless students are almost twice as likely as other students to have to repeat a grade, be expelled, get suspended, or drop out of high school. There are more than half a million foster children in the United States, and foster children also have challenges and are not likely to be on grade level, more likely to change schools during the academic year, and more likely to drop out of high school. Sixty-seven percent of inmates in our State prisons are high school dropouts, and this disproportionate share comes from these backgrounds. The amendment is simple. It adds a simple reporting of the graduation rates for homeless and foster youth to the State and school district report cards so we can begin to focus in on this important population we should not leave behind. It provides----

Mr. BOOKER. This amendment provides essential information to educators, policymakers, and the public toward improving the educational outcomes for these students. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield back.

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for an additional 18 seconds.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I rise today with the understanding that I have been a Senator for just a short while--about 19 months--and with the knowledge that I stand in a body full of champions for our Nation's kids. I am proud of the conversations I have had on both sides of the political aisle and see the earnestness and hard work to ensure that America is a place where all children can thrive. I wish to give a special thanks to Senators Alexander and Murray, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate HELP Committee. They have worked tirelessly in an effort to expand educational opportunities for children, and I have no doubt that they have already made lasting contributions to the lives of our children. In addition to that, they have taken a flawed legislative reality in No Child Left Behind and have already made significant strides in improving it. It should be applauded. They have done good work. In a nation that has been overcome with test craziness, they lowered those ridiculous bars and barriers that are being put up at the local level to achieving high education. I am proud to see a bipartisan consensus forming to correct the ills of No Child Left Behind which have been foisted upon school districts all over our country and which have made the quest for educational excellence more difficult, not easier or more empowering. I say all of that, but I must also say that I am here because there is an enormous amount of work still to do. This body must confront the dark places in our country where the ideals of the American educational system and where the dream of this country of equal access to opportunity is being failed. We have work to do. There is a moral urgency in this country, and that is what I am worried about today. It is deeply disconcerting to me that I cannot stand in the well of the Senate before you today and say that a child born in any ZIP Code in America will have access to a quality education and an equal shot in this Nation at learning the skills they need to make the most out of their lives, to contribute to our country, and to live their American dream. It is troubling that I cannot stand here in the well of this auspicious body and say that we are leading our peers around the globe when it comes to the number of our kids--percentage of the population-- who graduate from high school ready to succeed as part of the global economy. It is shameful and ignominious that I cannot stand here today and say that we are doing everything we can to ensure that all of our students can succeed and that we are holding those schools that are performing the worst in our Nation--those schools that often deal with the poorest of our country, the most marginalized of our country--that we are doing everything we can to serve them. There should be standards to which we hold ourselves accountable. For this Senator, it is this America where children are still struggling for the basic foundations of our ideals that concerns me. It was back in 1967 at Stanford University--my alma mater--that Martin Luther King stood and gave a speech about the other America. Sadly, we are a nation that still reflects these words from decades ago. He talked about a great America where children have quality schools, quality housing, and opportunities to succeed. That is the majority of our Nation. It makes us all proud and honored to serve this country that is an example to the globe of what is possible in a vibrant and strong democracy. But in that speech, Martin Luther King also talks about the other America. It is in this America, he said, that people are poor by the millions. ``They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity,'' King said. He said: In a sense, the greatest tragedy of this other America is what it does to little children. Little children in this other America are forced to grow up with clouds of inferiority forming every day in their little mental skies. And as we look at this other America, we see it as an arena of blasted hopes and shattered dreams. He details this other America by saying that ``many people of various backgrounds live in this other America. Some are Mexican-Americans, some are Puerto Ricans, some are Indians.'' Millions of them are White. ``But probably the largest group in this other America in proportion to its size in the population is the American Negro.'' We are moving now on education legislation, but let's tell the truth of what is happening in this other America--that there is still a dark underside where lack of achievement and lack of opportunity in this other America must be addressed. I have visited schools all over New Jersey. We are a State that is the envy of America in the quality of our schools. We have reached heights of educational attainment, and New Jersey youngsters go to great, prestigious universities all over our State and our country. I am proud that we are one of the greatest education States in America. But I also know that even New Jersey has some schools--particularly in vulnerable places of high poverty--that fail to serve the genius of our children. I have also had the privilege to travel our Nation, having been invited to speak in cities from coast to coast, and, like New Jersey, I see signs of hope and signs of promise. I see kids going to schools in the toughest neighborhoods, but those schools are more than schools- they are cathedrals of learning that serve their genius. Yet I am still told by parents from New Jersey and in our Nation, who look me in the eye and know their schools are failing their kids--they don't need reports from any government body to let them know their kids are not getting the education they deserve and to know the even more painful truth that their children, should they not get the education they deserve, will have options for themselves that are lost and constricted in this greatly global economy we have. I worry that if we put legislation forward which does not keep those children in the center of our hearts and our minds, the consequences of dashing those dreams are great for our Nation. When I was a child, I heard this poem by Langston Hughes: What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? In our country, people who are in environments with schools that fail the genius of our kids witness the disastrous manifestation of that failure on a daily basis. We now know that in America, a young Black boy who does not graduate from high school has a 70 percent chance, without that diploma, of ending up in jail by his midthirties. We now know that in our prisons in this Nation, 67 percent of inmates are high school dropouts. We know that the national average spent for a student in our country is $12,643. Yet, somehow we allow funds to drain from the National treasure that are the kids in our schools, by spending almost $29,000, on average, to keep one person behind bars in federal prison. If we deny poor children a quality education, there will be disastrous consequences. We now know that in our Nation, if you are born in poverty, you have a 9-percent chance of going to college. I will repeat that. If you are born in poverty, you have a 9-percent chance of going to college and graduating. This is unacceptable. We cannot design legislation in this body that does not stand up to this reality. Indeed, the legislation we are passing now has its roots in its initial focus on the disadvantaged. Fifty years ago this past April, President Lyndon B. Johnson sat in front of what once was a one-room schoolhouse in Texas, next to a woman named Kate Deadrich Loney, and signed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It had a purpose to it. It had a mission. Sitting next to his former teacher and in front of his former school, President Lyndon Johnson signed the law and said that this law ``represents a major commitment of the federal government to quality and equality in the schooling that we offer our young people. By passing this bill, we bridge the gap between helplessness and hope for more than five million educationally deprived children.'' That is not all he mentioned, but he specifically focused on those disadvantaged children--those 5 million in our Nation--who were not getting access to the American ideal, the American dream. Their dream was to be deferred or stolen or denied. Today in America, 6 percent of high schools fail to graduate one- third of their students. We must do better by them. It is this issue in our country that we have to recognize. As stated in President Johnson's words, the Federal Government's role in education has been that of a bridge between helplessness and hope, one that identifies the needs of the underserved and the most vulnerable students and the schools that are not serving them. Since 1965, the Federal Government has done a good job of playing a critical role in advancing equality and greater educational opportunity so that more children are included. The creation of Pell grants, title IX, and the first Education for All Handicapped Children Act are great strides our Nation has taken in being that bridge from helplessness to hope. The reauthorization of the critical legislation that first established that ``bridge'' has taken different forms over the past 50 years. In certain instances, as in the case of No Child Left Behind, it took a step too far. That is why this Senator praises Senator Alexander and Senator Murray for beginning to correct the inadequacies and deficiencies and harm that bill has done. When it comes to reauthorization of the ESEA, we cannot allow for an overly prescriptive No Child Left Behind bill. We cannot afford to go back to that era. We must change. However, we cannot allow the pendulum to swing so far that we abdicate our responsibility to make sure every student--to make sure the students in that other America are being served by a quality school. It is not overly prescriptive to ask schools that are failing to graduate a large share of their students to do something differently. It is not overly prescriptive to ask schools--these 6 percent of our schools that are dropout factories in our Nation--to make changes to honor the children, their beauty, their dignity, and their potential. And it is certainly not asking too much that we who are putting hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal Government into a system--that there is some accountability for these dropout factors. This body should be a steward of taxpayer dollars. Congress has a role when it comes to the investments we make in housing, when it comes to the investments we make in infrastructure, and when it comes to defense dollars, to make sure these dollars are serving the purpose to which they are extended--to make sure these investments produce returns for taxpayers. Today, the Federal Government and this body still have that critical role to play when it comes to making sure all American children have access to a quality education. The status quo is unacceptable. Too many of our children are still stuck in failing schools--schools that are so bad that they put thousands of children into that world where they do not have a chance at a college education or even getting a high school degree. The students succeeding in our country's quality schools will have the opportunity to become the next generation of teachers, mayors, police, firefighters, doctors, and Senators. They will lead the globe. This is what I am proud of as an American. The students in our country's failing schools deserve to have that same opportunity. I know this from traveling our country and traveling our State: that prodigy isn't bounded by geography and that genius is equally distributed in our country. Talent is as concentrated in one ZIP Code as it is in another. There are as many geniuses in Camden as there are in Princeton. The next Einstein or Gates or Hemingway is as likely to be growing up in Newark as they are in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I have seen schools flourish in poor neighborhoods. I have seen great schools meet incredible challenges and succeed in educating our kids. We know it is possible, and we should expect better than we are seeing now. Our moral test is whether we will be able to attain success everywhere it might be found, whether we will be able to nurture the genius in all of our kids. We owe it to every child in America to ensure that every door is open for them to demand better. We need to demand better for our kids. We need to keep them front and center as we consider this bill on the floor. I want to conclude by saying that we cannot succeed as a nation, in an increasingly global competitive environment, if we leave genius on the sidelines. Our educational determination to help those children is not simply about them, it is about us. It is about whether we will get the full bounty of the strength and potential of our Nation or if we will cast many aside into those dark places, into that other America. We cannot now be damned by the self-defeating stakes of low expectations for ourselves and all of our children. Kids who languish in this other America because of a lack of compassion and support and investment cannot afford to have less accountability for their success. I know as we debate this bill there will be resistance to the idea that those failing most, those stuck in dropout factories, those in the other America don't deserve levels of accountability. But I know that if we focus on those children, to keep them at the center of our thoughts, as was done by President Johnson when this bill originated, I know we can be the America we want to be, a nation that when our children put their hands on their hearts and say those words, ``liberty and justice for all,'' that they are real, indeed, for all children.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, if I may take one more moment, today, as I understand, or tomorrow is the last day for this group of pages to be here with us. I have been in this Senate now a little bit longer than this group of pages--about 20 months now. We see these groups of pages, and it is extraordinary to see young people come from all over America. Some of them may go on to government, but most of them will go on to do other things. We see them come into this Chamber and continue a tradition that has been going on for decades. They come and they go. But I want everyone to know that they really do enrich our experience here as Senators, and they help the staff do invaluable work for the operations of the Senate. They may be viewed as the lowest on the totem pole in this institution, but their value and the legacy they are continuing is a noble one. Today, on the penultimate day of this group of pages, I wish to offer them my gratitude for their service to our country. Thank you. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I rise as negotiations between the P5+1 nations and Iran enter their final phase. The President deserves our thanks for his commitment to eliminating the nuclear threat we face from Iran, and we owe the negotiating team our gratitude for their tireless and ongoing work to achieve a meaningful deal. For decades, Iran has posed a serious, real, and ongoing threat to the U.S. national security interests. Iran's pursuit of its hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East has manifested in the training and arming of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces and terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah. More recently, Iran's increased intervention in the conflicts in Yemen and Iraq pose dangerous and unpredictable regional consequences. Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei continues his horrific and unacceptable calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and has not yet come clean about the dimensions of Iran's nuclear program. The stakes of these nuclear negotiations clearly could not be higher. Nothing less than the peace and security of the Middle East hangs in the balance. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, the hard-fought legislation crafted by Senators Bob Corker, Ben Cardin, and New Jersey's own Senator Menendez--of which I am a cosponsor--sets up a clear and constructive process for Congress to weigh in on any final deal that touches upon the statutory sanctions Congress has enacted. With just days remaining before a final deadline, Congress must continue to voice its concerns and exercise its oversight authority. To me, this role is at the bedrock of our role, and Congress must play its role. As my senior Senator, Senator Menendez, has stated: If the interim period is just a short-term pause that preserves for Iran the ability to quickly restart its nuclear program, we will have failed the American people, and we will have our allies and friends to whom we have vowed to protect from Iranian aggressions. Any final agreement must build in the ability to hold Iran to its commitments and to prevent the absolute nightmare of a nuclear Iran from being realized. My intent today is to ensure that the administration, which has worked tirelessly to prevent Iran from gaining access to a nuclear weapon, has the best possible chance of success once the final agreement reaches Congress. The framework agreement released on April 2, 2015, leaves gaps, some of which I would like to spend a few moments highlighting today. First, a robust and comprehensive inspections and verification regime must be the foundation of any deal that is reached. With Iran's known enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow, as well as a heavy water reactor at Arak, under international oversight, the country's leaders would almost certainly look elsewhere to conduct any secret nuclear work. Iran, of course, denies any desire to build a bomb, but distrust of Iran is based on deep historical precedence. Iran secretly built and operated Natanz and Fordow, and they still haven't come clean about their past military nuclear activities at Parchin. Therefore, ensuring a robust inspections regime is critical for my support of a final deal. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action--JCPOA--fact sheet released on April 2 stated that Iran will be required to grant access to the IAEA to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of covert facilities anywhere in the country. It was hoped that rapid inspections would underwrite the verifiability of the agreement, so if Iran were suspected of violating the agreement, the IAEA would have access to those suspected sites. According to the latest reports, the IAEA would have the ability to investigate undeclared sites; however, Iran would still be able to dispute those requests in an international forum made up of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council--the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China--plus Germany, the EU, and Iran. As we look forward to examining the contours of an inspection regime, we must be wary of any proposal that allows Iran to jam up the IAEA and the dispute resolution process, while removing any evidence of violations that are occurring. Our negotiators should expect questions from this Chamber: Are there clear loopholes for cheating? Does the administration have high confidence that Iran is not making bomb material at its declared nuclear facilities and that the inspectors are able to detect clandestine facilities? Our standard will be an arrangement that prevents Iran from dodging or hiding from an inspections regime. Our intelligence, together with enhanced inspections, must be able to ensure that the United States will catch Iran if it takes the risk of pursuing a secret pathway to nuclear weapons and pursuing secret nuclear activities. Let's not forget that Iran has a dismal record of compliance with its international obligations. Iran has a 30-year record of cheating on the nonproliferation treaty--30 years of cheating. Iran has a 30-year record of cheating, but already the Ayatollah stated that Iran will not allow inspections at military sites today. Khamenei is already backtracking on major commitments agreed to by negotiators on all sides. This is a serious issue, and in my opinion, it is a clear ploy by Iran to frustrate the negotiations and move the goalpost on these negotiations. Even more so, understanding the history, this reinforces how much we don't know about the military dimension of Iran's past activities. We have no baseline for monitoring Iran moving forward without an understanding of what has been sought in the past. This is not new. The IAEA has raised these concerns. The April 2 JCPOA says: ``Iran will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA's concerns regarding the past military dimensions of its program.'' Secretary Kerry stated in April that past military dimensions ``will be part of a final agreement. If there's going to be a deal, it will be done.'' I applaud the Secretary's commitment to ensuring that the Iranians' past behavior will play a clear role in the ongoing negotiations. We know that in this Chamber, my colleagues will examine this closely. We will also examine timelines. In the best-case scenario, for 10 to 15 years, Iran will limit its research and development, limit its domestic enrichment capacity, will not build new enrichment facilities or heavy water reactors, will limit its stockpile of enriched uranium, and will accept enhanced transparency measures. After 15 years, when it is allowed under the terms of the agreement to build its stockpile, it will only be able to do so for peaceful purposes. But I believe we have to be clear-eyed about the other scenario, which is that after 10 to 15 years--a blip in time for a regime that has been under sanctions for decades--Iran ramps up its research and development efforts on advanced centrifuges, installs these centrifuges, and decides to break out. Would this deal enhance the intelligence picture of Iran's nuclear capability? That is an important question. If so, would it adequately inform our military options should Iran attempt that breakout? Are there assumptions being made that in the short term Iran may undergo internal political changes that will make them more favorable to the West? Are we assuming that in making this deal? Relying on such assumptions would be a dangerous gamble. There are no assurances about what the future state of their regime will be. Finally, Congress must be clear that this deal must not only be credible to Congress, but it must also satisfy Iran's neighbors that have much to gain from an Iran that follows established international norms and far too much to lose if we allow a deal that leaves Iran's neighbors vulnerable to reckless rhetoric and aggression. If other countries believe we have wavered in our resolve to get the strongest possible deal, it will be very difficult to discourage other countries from developing or pursuing a weapon. This could lead to proliferation, and such proliferation would be catastrophic. It would be a catastrophic blow to an already unstable and unpredictable region. This is not an abstract concern; Iran's neighbors are watching these negotiations carefully. While I sincerely hope that in 50 years future Senators will discuss how the United States did what no other nation was able to do--build a comprehensive sanctions regime that brought Iran to the negotiating table, neutralized the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, and succeeded in putting an end to dangerous calls for the destruction of Israel--success is not certain. Success is not an inevitability. I will not judge this deal before I see a final agreement. I encourage my colleagues to read the final text, as I am sure they will, before making judgments about the deal. We need to see what is in it. Under the Joint Plan of Action, we have seen unprecedented inspections of Iran's nuclear infrastructure take hold. Iran's enriched stockpile has shrunk. There are limitations on their enrichment processes. Enrichment has been confined to one facility. This is progress. It is my hope that the negotiators are building upon this progress and working toward a comprehensive final deal. There is much at stake. The bar is set high--as it should be--for a deal, and the questions I have raised are among the many that will be asked and that must be asked as we examine a final deal in the coming weeks.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I support the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015, an important step on the road to protecting the right to vote for all Americans. It responds to a recent Supreme Court ruling that rolled back critical voting protections that had proven effective for decades and that Congress had reauthorized several times. This landmark legislation would reaffirm the importance of the vote as a pillar of our democracy and restore a powerful shield to combat voting discrimination. I thank Senator Leahy for his leadership on this bill, and I am proud to be an original cosponsor of a bill that protects access to the ballot box for all American citizens. Mr. President, 50 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, legislation that he called ``a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.'' At the time he signed the bill into law, millions of Americans were denied the right to vote based on the color of their skin. President Johnson called this ``a clear and simple wrong'' and acknowledged that the Voting Rights Act's ``only purpose is to right that wrong.'' With the stroke of a pen, President Johnson enacted a bill that threw open the doors of democracy for all Americans and promised that the precious right to vote would be protected. The United States has had a long and bumpy road to even achieving that promise. In the decades before the Voting Rights Act, Blacks had been denied their right to vote and participate in the political process. They were harassed and intimidated from going to the polls. Ordinary Americans who marched for themselves or their fellow citizens to exercise the right to vote were beaten, arrested, jailed, or even murdered. On June 21, 1964, 51 years ago this week, three civil rights workers--two white young men from New York City and one black Mississippian--were killed in Mississippi by the Ku Klux Klan simply for trying to help register African Americans to vote. Their sacrifice inspired countless others to fight to make our union more perfect. Even in my home State, in Cherry Hill, NJ, stands a monument that pays tribute to these three civil rights workers who died in the struggle for equality. Few things made African Americans feel less equal in America than being deprived of the basic right of citizenship--the right to vote. They even suffered the indignity of having to count beans in a barrel, take a literacy test, pay a poll tax, or recite from memory the preamble to the Constitution without a glitch just to cast a ballot. As a result of disenfranchising tactics, no Black southerner served in Congress from 1901 to 1973. For decades, the promises of liberty and justice for all embedded in our national charter were simply words on paper. But the Voting Rights Act changed America. By the end of 1966, 1 year after it became law, only 4 out of the traditional 13 Southern States had less than 50 percent of African Americans registered to vote. In Mississippi alone, Black voter turnout increased from 6 percent in 1964 to 59 percent in 1969. Throughout the South, and indeed our entire country, Blacks and Latinos were elected into public office in significant numbers. The Voting Rights Act has been the most powerful tool to defend minorities' voting rights. The law established new ground to curb voter discrimination by requiring Federal ``preclearance''--that is, Federal review--of voting law changes in areas with histories of discrimination. And therein lies its power. There is no remedy for citizens after an unfair election has occurred. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was the only Federal remedy that could prevent unfair elections before they took place. The lesson of history is clear--section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has made America live up to its promises of liberty and justice by ensuring that every citizen has an equal opportunity to participate in our democracy. That is why preserving the Voting Rights Act is so important. That is why Presidents Reagan, Ford, and Nixon had signed prior reauthorizations of the act. That is why in successive Congresses--both Republicans and Democrats--repeatedly reauthorized section 5. In 2006, Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act by an overwhelming bipartisan margin. The law was reauthorized 98 to 0 in the Senate and 390 to 33 in the House and President George W. Bush signed the bill into law. It was a testament to the fact that men and women from across the aisle could come together to protect what is most important to our democracy, the right to vote. A right the Supreme Court has called fundamental because it is preservative of all other rights. Congress developed an expansive record during its 2006 reauthorization that justified the need for section 5 as a necessary and effective tool to protect minority voters. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees found ample evidence that, even after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, States and localities continued to engage in overt and subtle tactics that discriminated against minority voters. Two years ago, a narrowly split and deeply divided Supreme Court disregarded extensive findings of Congress and gutted the Voting Rights Act. In a case known as Shelby County v. Holder, five Justices on the Supreme Court put the Voting Rights Act on life support by striking down the formula by which Congress determines which States and localities are subject to preclearance. That 2013 decision has nullified the ability of the Federal Government to use the preclearance requirement. Section 5 has protected constitutional guarantees against discrimination in voting even when civil rights laws tried for over 100 years to achieve the success of the Voting Rights Act. The Court reached its decision despite Congress finding an overwhelming record of contemporary voting discrimination. Even the Chief Justice wrote, ``voting discrimination still exists: no one doubts that.'' Yet, the Shelby County decision rested on a flawed logic that the Voting Rights Act was a victim of its own success. Justice Ginsburg's dissent noted a ``catch-22'' in the majority's logic. She said: If the statute was working, there would be less evidence of discrimination, so opponents might argue that Congress should not be allowed to renew the statute. In contrast, if the statute was not working, there would be plenty of evidence of discrimination, but scant reason to renew a failed regulatory regime. I agree with Justice Ginsburg that the Court's decision to strike down section 5 ``when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you're not getting wet.'' Even in the aftermath of Shelby County, States continued to enact laws that make it harder for American citizens to cast their ballot. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Nation's foremost civil rights coalition, released a report last year entitled ``The Persistent Challenges of Voting Discrimination.'' That report documented 148 voting rights violations in America since 2000. Because each voting rights violation often impacts thousands of voters, the report underscored that the impact of racial discrimination in voting is much more profound than the nearly 150 documented violations suggest. New State laws erect barriers to voting, which restrict voter registration drives, eliminate same-day voter registration, reduce the early voting period, and require photo identification and proof of citizenship to vote. So far, 32 States have passed laws requiring voters to show some kind of identification at the polls, which often have a disparate impact on minority and low-income voters. The Voting Rights Advancement Act would help prevent voting practices that are likely to be discriminatory before they cause harm. It would create a new nationwide coverage formula requiring States and localities to obtain preclearance for voting changes that have historically been found to be discriminatory. It would enhance the authority of courts to order a preclearance remedy, require greater transparency regarding voting changes, and clarify the Attorney General's authority to send Federal observers to monitor elections across the country. In his ``I Have a Dream'' speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ``When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.'' The Voting Rights Act has been one of our most important tools to fulfill that promise and protect voters against discrimination. Congress now has a historic opportunity to ensure that the critical provisions in that law are restored and strengthened. Now is the time to recommit ourselves to the cause of justice. Now is the time to safeguard our democratic values. Now is the time to protect the progress so many Americans worked so hard to establish. I urge all Senators to support this bill that would combat voter discrimination and breathe life back into the Voting Rights Act.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, the tragic Amtrak derailment last month shined a light on the critical need to have a strong, safe passenger rail system for the millions of passengers traveling on our rails. My heart goes out to the families and individuals impacted by the tragedy and I hope we never see anything like it again. Last week I joined my colleague, Senator Wicker in introducing the Railroad Reform, Enhancement, and Efficiency Act, comprehensive passenger rail legislation that boosts our infrastructure and implements needed reforms. Most importantly, it improves safety on our Nation's railways. This 4-year authorization is a step forward in providing the stability Amtrak needs to be successful and serve the consumers who rely on it. Across every mode of transportation, America needs critical investment. Nowhere is the investment crisis more pronounced than in New Jersey. The century-old tunnels that run under the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York are reaching a breaking point. We must act with urgency to find State and local partners to replace this critical infrastructure. New Jersey is also home to the Portal Bridge, which is in need of replacement in order to prevent delays and closures that slow our economy. It has been estimated that the loss of the Northeast Corridor could cost the country $100 million per day; a devastating impact that we cannot afford. The costs for these projects are significant, which is why we must find new ways to help advance them. Our legislation is a game changer for large-scale rail projects. The bill helps unlock and leverage innovative financing opportunities by improving the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing Program, or RRIF. Our legislation will establish new creditworthiness criteria focused on the merits of the project, increase repayment flexibility, help leverage private financing opportunities, and speed up the process of applying for and receiving a loan--all of which can help advance projects like the Gateway Project along the Northeast Corridor. As China and other countries invest tens of billions for rail infrastructure, we must do more than maintain the status quo. Our bill's financing provisions enable us to take every possible advantage to improve our rail capacity and infrastructure. Our legislation also includes strong safety provisions to protect passengers and workers. Positive train control, or PTC, was cited as a technology that could have prevented the tragic derailment last month and our legislation will advance deployment of PTC by authorizing grants and prioritizing loan applications to support implementation. Additionally, the legislation will improve safety by requiring action on priorities like grade crossings and enforcing speed limits, as well as worker protections, among various other provisions. It is important to note that a strong authorization of funding for passenger rail is only the start. Investing in the future of America's rail network will also require dedicated and multi-year streams of revenue to support the funding authorized in this bill. I am committed to working with my colleagues on the Finance Committee to make that a reality. The Railroad Reform, Enhancement, and Efficiency Act is important for our global competitiveness and a forward step in promoting investment in our infrastructure. I thank the committee leadership and Senator Wicker for their support and work on this important legislation that will improve the lives of New Jerseyans and individuals across the country I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I am proud to join with Senator Boxer to introduce the Police Reporting of Information, Data, and Evidence Act of 2015, PRIDE Act, a critical data collection bill designed to advance public safety, strengthen police-community relations, and foster mutual trust and respect. I thank Senator Boxer for her leadership on this issue. A critical issue in our Nation today is the issue of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Tragic events across the country--in New York, Ferguson, North Charleston, Baltimore, and subsequent protests--remind us how critical trust is to the fabric of a democracy. These incidents raised the public's awareness and sparked a national debate about how police and citizens interact and how they should interact. But the issue is not unique now. The Kerner Commission's 1968 report on urban violence declared that minorities believed a ``double standard'' of justice and protection existed for whites and blacks. Sadly, that distrust continues today. It is contrary to who we are and what we stand for. Our nation was founded on shared and timeless values. Liberty and justice for all. Equal justice under law. The former was enshrined in our founding charter. The latter was written on the marble of Supreme Court. But when any American feels that they have not been treated fairly, we undermine those values. That makes the issue of police and community relations a problem for all of us--not just a specific city or a specific race. It is a problem for the Nation as a whole. We must do all we can to restore justice to our criminal justice system. That includes tracking when officers use deadly or serious force against people in the community. We must ensure that police officers feel respected and honored. Each day, law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to keep our communities safe. They deserve our respect. They should not feel attacked or undervalued. They routinely make split-second decisions every day that do not escalate into uses of force. As the senseless killings of NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wanjian Liu remind us, officers often serve the public at considerable personal risk. We should provide them with the tools they need to do their jobs effectively and safely. That includes tracking the uses of force by civilians against our men and women in uniform. To bridge the wide trust gap between law enforcement and citizens, we must shine a light on the problem. The first step to solve any problem is to be honest about the facts. We need objective data. We need to study trends. We need to examine the evidence. That is why I am encouraged by the words of FBI Director, James Comey, who said ``We simply must find ways to see each other more clearly. Part of that has to involve collecting and sharing better information about encounters between police and citizens, especially violent encounters.'' For too long, the way we have collected information and data from States and local governments on violent encounters between law enforcement and civilians has been inconsistent. Under current law, demographic data regarding officer-involved shootings is inconsistently reported to the FBI under the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. According to a study by the Washington Post this month, since 2011, less than three percent of the Nation's 18,000 State and local police agencies reported fatal shootings by their officers to the FBI. That is unacceptable. Incomplete and unreliable reporting makes it tougher to get a true scope of the problem and more difficult to obtain a policy solution. The PRIDE Act would fix that problem and increase accountability for law enforcement by creating a comprehensive national data collection program. It would require law enforcement at the State, local, and tribal levels to report to the Attorney General information regarding police-involved shootings and any incident in which use of force by or against a law enforcement officer or civilian results in serious injury or death. By making the voluntary reporting of uses of force by, and against, police officers mandatory, we ensure that more accountability and transparency will exist between the police and the citizens they protect. I have worked closely with Senator Boxer on crafting this legislation, and appreciate my friend and colleague welcoming several recommendations to strengthen the bill, including clarifications that use-of-force policies for law enforcement officers be made publicly available. I believe this change would promote transparency. It shines a spotlight on the scope of shootings and uses of force involving police and civilians, which in turn enhances public confidence in our justice system. I also appreciate that the bill includes grant funds for public awareness campaigns designed to gain information from the public on uses of force against police officers. This was a recommendation drawn from being a former mayor. I have seen first-hand how helpful tip lines, hotlines, and public service announcements can be in helping law enforcement capture dangerous people. When someone uses violence against our men and women in uniform, we must respond quickly. That means we should do all that we can to ensure that information on the suspect gets out to the public in a timely manner. That way, the offender can promptly be caught and brought to justice. Lastly, I recommended the bill include grant funds for use of force training for law enforcement agencies and personnel, including de- escalation training. Officers deserve to receive the best and most up to date training we can offer. They must feel confident that they are trained to use force in a way that allows them to safely come home to their families. Equally, the public deserves to have confidence that when an officer uses force he or she does so appropriately. That means training officers to ensure that force is a last resort and officers know how to de-escalate a situation to avoid using force at all. Many of the bill's provisions were recommendations from the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. It put forth a series of recommendations aimed at rebuilding trust between the law enforcement officers and the communities they protect. Its recommendations included use of force data collection, de-escalation training, transparency, and officer safety measures. I am glad that many of the task force recommendations were included in this bill. It is time we address the plague of shootings by and against police officers in our country. We must come together to ensure that we do see each other clearly and restore public confidence in our system of justice. The first step is to shine a light on the problem and collect accurate data. I thank Senator Boxer again for her leadership, and I urge my colleagues to support the PRIDE Act and work towards its speedy passage.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I am proud to join with Senator Boxer to introduce the Police Reporting of Information, Data, and Evidence Act of 2015, PRIDE Act, a critical data collection bill designed to advance public safety, strengthen police-community relations, and foster mutual trust and respect. I thank Senator Boxer for her leadership on this issue. A critical issue in our Nation today is the issue of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Tragic events across the country--in New York, Ferguson, North Charleston, Baltimore, and subsequent protests--remind us how critical trust is to the fabric of a democracy. These incidents raised the public's awareness and sparked a national debate about how police and citizens interact and how they should interact. But the issue is not unique now. The Kerner Commission's 1968 report on urban violence declared that minorities believed a ``double standard'' of justice and protection existed for whites and blacks. Sadly, that distrust continues today. It is contrary to who we are and what we stand for. Our nation was founded on shared and timeless values. Liberty and justice for all. Equal justice under law. The former was enshrined in our founding charter. The latter was written on the marble of Supreme Court. But when any American feels that they have not been treated fairly, we undermine those values. That makes the issue of police and community relations a problem for all of us--not just a specific city or a specific race. It is a problem for the Nation as a whole. We must do all we can to restore justice to our criminal justice system. That includes tracking when officers use deadly or serious force against people in the community. We must ensure that police officers feel respected and honored. Each day, law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to keep our communities safe. They deserve our respect. They should not feel attacked or undervalued. They routinely make split-second decisions every day that do not escalate into uses of force. As the senseless killings of NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wanjian Liu remind us, officers often serve the public at considerable personal risk. We should provide them with the tools they need to do their jobs effectively and safely. That includes tracking the uses of force by civilians against our men and women in uniform. To bridge the wide trust gap between law enforcement and citizens, we must shine a light on the problem. The first step to solve any problem is to be honest about the facts. We need objective data. We need to study trends. We need to examine the evidence. That is why I am encouraged by the words of FBI Director, James Comey, who said ``We simply must find ways to see each other more clearly. Part of that has to involve collecting and sharing better information about encounters between police and citizens, especially violent encounters.'' For too long, the way we have collected information and data from States and local governments on violent encounters between law enforcement and civilians has been inconsistent. Under current law, demographic data regarding officer-involved shootings is inconsistently reported to the FBI under the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. According to a study by the Washington Post this month, since 2011, less than three percent of the Nation's 18,000 State and local police agencies reported fatal shootings by their officers to the FBI. That is unacceptable. Incomplete and unreliable reporting makes it tougher to get a true scope of the problem and more difficult to obtain a policy solution. The PRIDE Act would fix that problem and increase accountability for law enforcement by creating a comprehensive national data collection program. It would require law enforcement at the State, local, and tribal levels to report to the Attorney General information regarding police-involved shootings and any incident in which use of force by or against a law enforcement officer or civilian results in serious injury or death. By making the voluntary reporting of uses of force by, and against, police officers mandatory, we ensure that more accountability and transparency will exist between the police and the citizens they protect. I have worked closely with Senator Boxer on crafting this legislation, and appreciate my friend and colleague welcoming several recommendations to strengthen the bill, including clarifications that use-of-force policies for law enforcement officers be made publicly available. I believe this change would promote transparency. It shines a spotlight on the scope of shootings and uses of force involving police and civilians, which in turn enhances public confidence in our justice system. I also appreciate that the bill includes grant funds for public awareness campaigns designed to gain information from the public on uses of force against police officers. This was a recommendation drawn from being a former mayor. I have seen first-hand how helpful tip lines, hotlines, and public service announcements can be in helping law enforcement capture dangerous people. When someone uses violence against our men and women in uniform, we must respond quickly. That means we should do all that we can to ensure that information on the suspect gets out to the public in a timely manner. That way, the offender can promptly be caught and brought to justice. Lastly, I recommended the bill include grant funds for use of force training for law enforcement agencies and personnel, including de- escalation training. Officers deserve to receive the best and most up to date training we can offer. They must feel confident that they are trained to use force in a way that allows them to safely come home to their families. Equally, the public deserves to have confidence that when an officer uses force he or she does so appropriately. That means training officers to ensure that force is a last resort and officers know how to de-escalate a situation to avoid using force at all. Many of the bill's provisions were recommendations from the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. It put forth a series of recommendations aimed at rebuilding trust between the law enforcement officers and the communities they protect. Its recommendations included use of force data collection, de-escalation training, transparency, and officer safety measures. I am glad that many of the task force recommendations were included in this bill. It is time we address the plague of shootings by and against police officers in our country. We must come together to ensure that we do see each other clearly and restore public confidence in our system of justice. The first step is to shine a light on the problem and collect accurate data. I thank Senator Boxer again for her leadership, and I urge my colleagues to support the PRIDE Act and work towards its speedy passage.