Ben Luján

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I have a motion at the desk to instruct conferees.

Mr. LUJAN. Thanks to a bipartisan effort in the Commerce Committee, the Senate-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act includes nearly $17 billion to support research, development, and supply chain support at the Department of Energy National Laboratories, including key technology areas, such as high-performance computing, advanced energy technologies, artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and advanced manufacturing. The House bill also includes robust support for our National Labs. This strong investment is critical to maintaining and strengthening U.S. competitiveness and security, especially as global R&D expenditures rise in these transformative industries. Our National Labs are a research crown jewel, and other countries are taking notice of our progress. In fact, China is working to build out their own national lab network modeled after our own DOE Labs. Inaction would leave the United States at risk of being rapidly outpaced. New Mexico's own Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories are leading the way in developing cutting-edge technologies in key focus areas and driving innovation in critical national priorities, such as next-generation microelectronics. The Department of Energy's experience working with universities, collaborating with the private sector, and protecting American intellectual property from theft makes it a pillar of the U.S. innovation ecosystem. Vote on Motion

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. So the importance of us being here today goes right in the face of having this conversation as a debate. I appreciate my Republican colleagues who have come to the floor to engage in some debate, in some colloquy. I, like Senator Kaine, came to the Senate a bit naive. I thought debate happened here all the time. I came here thinking that I could offer an amendment at any time, that I could offer a unanimous consent at any time. That is not the case. This is not the Senate that our Founders envisioned. Now, if you feel moved to oppose a piece of legislation, if you are passionate about an issue, you should have the courage to come to the Senate floor in front of your colleagues and the American people. You should not be allowed to vote it in from behind closed doors. This Chamber has changed, just as the times have changed. So it is the responsibility of every one of us to make sure that the Senate works better, not for us but for the American people. Now, in closing, in 1805, Vice President Aaron Burr suggested that the Senate remove from its rules the ``previous question motion,'' which allowed the Chamber's simple majority to end debate on a bill. He viewed the rule as completely unnecessary and urged the Senate to clean up its rule book because after everyone had spoken and debated, they would vote. A year later, the Senate removed the previous question motion, leaving a loophole that allowed the minority to take advantage and use what we now know as the filibuster. Unfortunately, Burr could not foresee the obstructionism of decades to come. In the following decades, pro-slavery Senators co-opted the filibuster to protect the interests of White southern enslavers. Men such as John Calhoun abused the filibuster to obstruct civil right efforts. And according to historians, between 1917 and 1994, 30 measures favored by the sitting President and simple majorities in the House and Senate--half of which addressed civil rights--they all died, thanks to the filibuster. The same procedural tool proved to be even more useful to southern Senators who sought to block civil rights legislation, including antilynching bills. Not until 1964 did the Senate successfully overcome a filibuster to pass important civil rights legislation and subsequent voting rights legislation. Now, history should act as a teacher to all of us, and history will remind us who voted today on the side of the people. I am proud that this effort includes my Native American Voting Rights Act, which will ensure Tribes and Native Americans and Alaskan Natives and voters on Tribal lands will have equal access to the electoral process. Access to the ballot box is the cornerstone of our democratic system, and without equitable access to it, we cannot stand on the world stage and claim that we are all leaders in the fight for liberty and justice for all. Now, my Republican colleagues have proven time and again that they are not interested in acting on this issue. Washington Republicans have made the political calculation that they have a partisan advantage here. They are too comfortable shrugging their shoulders and sitting on the sidelines while States chip away at the right to vote. I know where I stand. All we are asking for today is the opportunity to vote on this critical piece of legislation after everyone here has said their piece. I urge my colleagues to do the right thing today, to do right by our democracy, and to send the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act to the President's desk. I yield the floor.

Mr. LUJAN. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking all the Senators who have come to the floor to make the case for democracy and for voting rights. The right to vote is the heartbeat of our democracy. It is a symbol of the progress that we have made in this Chamber and the promise that we have made to the next generation of Americans. This legislation will protect the right to vote for all, safeguard against election sabotage, end partisan gerrymandering, and limit the influence of dark money in politics so that billionaires and corporations cannot buy elections. Protecting our democracy should not be partisan; it should be a moral and civic imperative for every one of us. As a former U.S. Senator from New Mexico, the late Dennis Chavez, who served in this Chamber for 27 years until his passing in 1962, said: Either we are all free, or we fail; democracy belongs to all of us. Our democracy faces clear and present dangers posed by Republican-led State legislatures across the country. Some lawmakers want to curtail the right to vote--not for all Americans but for the most vulnerable and historically disenfranchised. And if we think it is bad now with what has happened in these State legislatures over these last few months, it is about to get a lot worse. History will not look kindly on inaction at this critical moment, and we must show the American people that we will not flinch when faced with a choice to protect our democracy and let it crumble before our eyes. There is a pattern of rampant discrimination that is disenfranchising countless Black and Brown voters across this country. In 2005, Jesus Gonzalez became a naturalized citizen. On the same day he swore an oath to the United States, he sought to register to vote in Arizona. He was rejected, so he tried again after he obtained a license, but again he was rejected. It was then that Mr. Gonzalez, a school janitor, sued the State. His case made its way to the Supreme Court, which in 2013 ruled in his favor and struck down Arizona's law. Mr. Gonzalez was 1 of 31,000 voters in Arizona affected by such a discriminatory law. Just this past September, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund joined other civil rights organizations in suing Texas over its discriminatory voting legislation known as S.B. 1. We have heard a lot about it today. Among other things, S.B. 1 seeks to curb the assistance available to limited English-proficient voters. In 2006, MALDEF successfully sued Texas after the State legislature sought to dilute the Latino vote. In that case, LULAC v. Perry, the Supreme Court found that Texas violated the Voting Rights Act by denying Latinos the ability to elect a candidate of their choosing. In 2017, MALDEF again sued Texas after the city of Pasadena sought to weaken the Latino vote by changing the way the city elected city council members. These are just some of the chapters of a long history of voter suppression. We also know that voter suppression of Native Americans is real, and it is intentional. Until 2020, North Dakota voter ID laws required a residential street address. Now, that may sound like common sense to some folks, but for those of us who live in rural communities and for my brothers and sisters who live in Native American communities, we all grew up with rural route boxes. My address growing up was Route 1, Box 102, not because I didn't want a street address named after my grandparents like it is today; that was the address. Because of that law in North Dakota, many Native Americans, like Richard Brakebill, who is a Navy veteran, have been denied the right to vote because of an expired driver's license and a Tribal ID that--get this--did not have a current residential address. It had the post office box that was his address. In 2020, the candidacy of Joseph Dedman for county sheriff--a member of the Navajo Nation--was challenged in Arizona because he included post office boxes, which are often the only form of address for rural Native American households--it is the only one they can obtain--on his petition for office. In 2020, Arizona's Pima County closed the early voting center on Pascua Yaqui lands and spent nearly $200,000 in legal fees rather than reinstate the voting center. South Dakota provided a fully funded polling place and early voting and registration opportunities to the 12 non-Native American residents in Gann Valley, but--get this--they refused to provide the same services to the 1,200-plus residents in Fort Thompson on Crow Creek Tribal lands. In 2021, Kimberly Dillon, a citizen of Rosebud Sioux Tribe, joined the Oglala and Rosebud Sioux Tribes in suing South Dakota for requiring voters to register at State agencies and DMVs, which were hours away from Tribal lands. They were making it harder for people to register to vote by saying: Drive 3 or 4 hours away. Those are tough roads to drive on. Many Native Americans like Kimberly went to great lengths to submit their voter registration applications to those State agencies, but the agencies never sent them to the local election offices even after they traversed and got the job done in making that journey. They just want to submit them to let them get registered to vote. As a result, her right to vote in the 2020 Presidential election was taken away. Kimberly asked: How many other people faced this violation of our basic freedom to vote? We cannot allow voter suppression to continue in South Dakota or anywhere in Native America. These are American citizens whose rights were taken away from them for partisan advantage. Jesus and Kimberly's voices were taken away from them just like countless other Americans who face the same discrimination. Nineteen States have passed 34 laws making it easier to sabotage election laws and target voters of color, and not all of them had a supermajority of two-thirds vote. In 2016, Representative David Lewis, a Republican State lawmaker in North Carolina and member of the general assembly's redistricting committee, said: I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats [representatives] . . . because I do not believe it's possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats. This is not new. This has been going on decade after decade. The only thing that is different now is that in 2013, when the Supreme Court gutted the enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act, Republican- led legislatures don't have to hide behind it any longer. Now they just say they are going to draw for partisan advantage. They are going to change the rules to keep certain communities from voting, making it harder for people to get to that ballot box. This is nothing new, and shame on all of us for not acting when the Supreme Court told us this in 2013. That is on all of us. But we are here today. We are also seeing an uptick in violence as a result of the lies across the country--the Big Lie. The Department of Homeland Security has seen an increase in calls for violence as a result of these baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. We are losing honest election officials and poll workers because of threats against their lives due to conspiracy theories and lies pushed by the former President. The Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act will protect the vote of working families across the country. Only one archaic parliamentary measure prohibits all this progress. The filibuster does not increase deliberation in this Chamber. It does not incentivize compromise. So while some claim that amending the filibuster will further the country's division, I disagree. Right now, it is only aiding and abetting obstructionists and opponents of progress when it comes to voting on civil rights legislation. While the filibuster is not mentioned a single time in the Constitution--

Mr. LUJAN

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

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Mr. LUJAN

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

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 356 and 357; that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc without intervening action or debate; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills en bloc: Calendar No. 130, S. 233; Calendar No. 131, S. 1226; Calendar No. 132, S. 2205; Calendar No. 133, S. 2126.

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the bills be considered read a third time and passed en bloc and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table en bloc.

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration, and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 372.

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I know of no further debate on the resolution.

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and that the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 400.

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 411, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. LUJAN. I know of no further debate on the resolution.

Mr. LUJAN. I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 796 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Tester substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read three times and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following Senate resolutions which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 412, S. Res. 413, S. Res. 414, S. Res. 415, and S. Res. 416.

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Mr. LUJAN

Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.