Chuck Schumer

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, 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. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. I know of no further debate.

Mr. SCHUMER. Finally, I ask that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. I know of no further debate.

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 490, submitted earlier today.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SCHUMER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn to convene for a pro forma session only, with no business conducted, at 11:20 a.m. on Friday, January 14; further, that when the Senate adjourns on Friday, it stand adjourned until 12 noon on Tuesday, January 18; that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I have 6 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I have a short announcement about the schedule. Due to the circumstances regarding COVID and another potentially hazardous winter storm approaching the DC area this weekend, the Senate will adjourn tonight. However, we will be postponing recess so the Senate can vote on voting rights. We will return on Tuesday to take up the House-passed message containing voting rights legislation. Make no mistake, the U.S. Senate will, for the first time this Congress, debate voting rights legislation beginning on Tuesday. Members of this Chamber were elected to debate and to vote, particularly on an issue as vital to the beating heart of our democracy as this one, and we will proceed. If the Senate Republicans choose obstruction over protecting the sacred right to vote, as we expect them to, the Senate will consider and vote on changing the Senate rules, as has been done many times before, to allow for the passage of voting rights legislation. I will close with this: If the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, then how can we, in good conscience, allow for a situation in which the Republican Party can debate and pass voter suppression laws at the State level with only a simple majority vote but not allow the U.S. Senate to do the same? In the coming days, we will confront this sobering question, and every Member will go on record. Finally, Members should expect that the next State work period would begin on the week of January 24. Nord Stream 2 Mr. President, now on Nord Stream, a few minutes ago the Senate voted against passing legislation proposed by Senator Cruz to address Nord Stream 2. Probably every single one of us in this Chamber agrees that the United States must be strong in confronting Putin and his destabilizing tactics in Eastern Europe and in Ukraine. But as my colleagues made clear this morning, Senator Cruz's bill, in our opinion, is the wrong answer at this time to deter President Putin's aggression. I commend my colleagues who came to the floor to make the case against today's misguided proposal: my friends Chairman Menendez, Senator Shaheen, who cochairs the Senate's NATO Observer Group, and Senator Murphy. After today's vote, this issue is not behind us. The work is not done. President Putin remains a threat, and we must address this matter. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work with Chairman Menendez and Chairman Brown to support Chairman Menendez's comprehensive sanctions, security, and humanitarian aid package. I believe the Menendez bill is the answer and an important step in the right direction. But, of course, I am willing to consider reasonable additions and modifications. From interfering in elections to conducting a plethora of cyber attacks that target us here in the homeland, to what is happening today on the border of Ukraine, President Putin has left no doubt of his desire to stir up instability. His action with respect to Ukraine calls for a robust and severe deterrent action. I hope my Republican colleagues will come forward and work with the chair so we can truly confront Putin's dangerous aggression.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. Finally, as we continue this important conversation about the future of our democracy, I ask my Democratic colleagues to consider the following: If the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, then how can we in good conscience allow for a situation in which the Republican Party can debate and pass voter suppression laws at the State level with only a simple majority vote but not allow the United States to do the same? Let me repeat that. If the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, then how can we in good conscience allow for a situation in which the Republican Party can debate and pass voter suppression laws at the State level with only a simple majority vote but not allow the U.S. Senate to do the same? In the coming days, we will confront this sobering question. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, on defending democracy--something Leader Reid would have been passionate about, if he were still with us here, and he is telling us that now--over the next few days, the U.S. Senate will face a critical and unavoidable question: Are its Members going to act to protect our democracy and protect voting rights or will its Members choose the path of obstruction, inaction, and side with the Big Lie overtaking our precious experiment in self-rule? We had two professors come to us 2 days ago, the authors of ``How Democracies Die,'' and one of the main ways that democracies die is when one political party refuses to accept the results of an election that was run freely and fairly. That is what is happening here. They showed how important this is and how there is unfortunate historical precedent in doing what we did. And earlier this week, President Biden made that clear. He made clear to the Nation--and to all of us who serve in the Senate--that the time to answer the question about whether allowing the Big Lie, so ruinous to a democracy, to overtake our precious experiment in self-rule will prevail. As the Senate has done many times in its history, it must soon act again to safeguard democracy from the dangers of the present day: the power of dark money, voter suppression, and efforts to subvert the democratic process from the bottom up. I commend President Biden for offering a strong speech, and I look forward to having him join Senate Democrats later today at our caucus meeting to discuss the path forward. Yesterday, I shared with my Democratic colleagues our plan for what the next few days are going to look like in this Chamber and how I, as majority leader, will move to finally begin, at last, a floor debate on the voting rights legislation. Later today, the House of Representatives will pass a message that will include the language of the two bills Republicans have filibustered for months--the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. As permitted under the existing rules, we will have the ability to proceed to the legislation and debate it on a simple majority basis-- something that has been denied to us four times in the last several months because Republicans didn't want to move forward. Then the Senate will finally hold a debate on the voting rights legislation for the first time in this Congress, and every Senator will be faced with a choice of whether or not to pass this legislation to protect our democracy. There has been a lot of gas-lighting here on the floor lately from the other side about power grabs, about takeovers, but precious little in terms of substance. I have not heard them mention what Republican legislatures are doing. That is not the thrust of their speech. They say: Oh, it is a power grab. Oh, it is a takeover. Well, my friends, if there was ever a power grab, it is what is happening in the State legislatures right now, where Republican legislators are taking away people's sacred right to vote and aiming it particularly at certain groups--people of color, young people, people in urban areas, older people, disabled people. So let me remind my colleagues what these bills actually do. The Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act are balanced, effective, and commonsense bills that build on the work that this Chamber has done in the past to protect democracy, and it was often done with bipartisan votes. The transformation of the Republican Party in the era of Donald Trump is apparent and nasty, and, most importantly, really dangerous to our democracy. These laws set basic standards for all American citizens to vote safely and vote securely, while protecting elections from attempts at subversion. What is wrong with that? How is that a power grab, to allow people to vote? It is the people who should have the power, not politicians and State legislative bodies to take it away. The bill also fights against the power of Big Money that has cascaded into our system, and so much of it is now being used to try and intimidate legislators, Senators, and Congressmen from preserving this right to vote. And the bill ends partisan gerrymandering. We have all seen situations--the legislature of Wisconsin, the State Assembly, where 53 percent of the people voted for Democratic legislators in 2020, but only about a third of the seats are Democratic due the severe nature of this gerrymandering. And, so importantly, these bills restore the critical preclearance provisions that were once part of the Voting Rights Act that many of my Republican colleagues supported in the past, which a conservative majority on the Supreme Court shamefully gutted roughly a decade ago. Democrats have tried for months--months--to convince our Republican colleagues to join us on a bipartisan basis to begin debate on these bills, to no avail. We presented these reasonable, commonsense proposals, as I said, many of which had been voted on by Republicans in the past. We presented them on the floor in June, August, October, and November. Each time I promised my Republican colleagues they would have the opportunity to voice their concerns and offer germane amendments. I wouldn't limit the germane amendments that they wished to offer. We have lobbied Republicans privately and tried to engage them in both the Senate Rules Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Every step of the way--every step of the way--we have been met with near total resistance. To date, none of our efforts have produced any meaningful engagement from the other side of the aisle. But Members of this Chamber were elected to debate and to vote, particularly on an issue as vital to the beating heart of our democracy as this. I have said for months that just because Republicans have refused to work with us to protect voting rights does not mean Democrats would stop working to move forward on our own. The matter is simply too important. It is the wellspring of our democracy, the right by which all other rights are secured--voting. I am reading the biography of Grant, by Chernow. The No. 1 thing the southern segregationists, who happened to be Democrats at the time, wanted to take away from the newly freed slaves was the right to vote. They knew that, if Black people didn't have the right to vote in the South, they would have no power--no power over our laws, no power of where resources go, no power to decide the directions of the country. And that was the No. 1 thing they wanted to prevent. So it is so vital to keep people's right to vote, particularly when some of the laws--too many--are aimed at the people of color, reminding us that racism is the poison of America still. So we will move forward. The path I have laid out sets up a process by which Senators can finally make clear to the American people where they stand on protecting our democracy. Republicans will have a chance to show where they stand on preserving the right of every eligible citizen to cast a ballot. Republicans will have a chance to make clear where they stand on fighting efforts to empower partisan actors to subvert the election process and create more Big Lies in the future. Republicans will have a chance to make clear where they stand on fighting the power of dark money, which so many Americans oppose--Democrats and Republicans. And Republicans will have a chance to show where they stand on ending partisan gerrymandering. Of course, to ultimately end debate and pass anything, we will also need 10 Republicans to join us, ultimately, on cloture. If they don't, we will be left with no choice but to consider changes to Senate rules so we can move forward. And changing Senate rules has been done many times before in this Chamber. This is not the first, second, or third time that this is happening. All of us must make a choice about whether or not we will do our part to preserve our democratic Republic this day and age. We cannot be satisfied in thinking that democracy will win out in the end if we are not willing to put in the work, strength, and courage to defend it. Last night, I read the op-ed published by President Obama that eloquently laid out what really is at stake here. I encourage my colleagues to read it if they haven't already. He reminded us that democracy is not a given. It is not self-executing. But it can indeed survive and thrive if we are prepared to follow in the footsteps of the great Americans who did their part to defend democracy before us, many of them giving their lives. We are now being called upon to do our part. Madam President, I now ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Obama op-ed, which I will bring to the desk shortly.

Mr. SCHUMER

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

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, before I begin my remarks, I see my dear friend, the President, sitting there--the Senator from Nevada--and I am just thinking, last night, as we watched Harry Reid leave the Senate for the final time: Harry, we miss you, but we know you are still here to guide us. Thank you.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. Now, Mr. President, I ask to execute the previous order with respect to the Sanchez nomination.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I have 5 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the allowing committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand in recess under the previous order.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendments be withdrawn; that the Peters substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be withdrawn; that the Peters substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, let me begin with the following figure: 55 million people; that is the estimated number of eligible voters who now live within States that have passed legislation restricting the right to vote and potentially undermining the electoral process. Today, President Biden will travel to one such State, Georgia--home to one of the most egregious voter suppression and election subversion laws we have seen in a long time. I believe the President will give a strong speech and will urge that we in the Senate change the rules so that we can prevent these awful and nasty laws from being implemented. In an address to the Nation, he will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to make the case that the time has come for the Senate to pass voting rights legislation and take whatever steps necessary to address this Chamber's rules in order to accomplish that goal. The Senate is going to act as soon as tomorrow. It is my intention to, once again, bring legislation to the floor to fight back against the threats to democracy and protect people's access to the ballot. Once again, I urge my Republican colleagues to take up the flag of the traditional Republican Party, not only of Lincoln but of Reagan and H. W. Bush and W. Bush and vote yes to move forward so we can have a debate like the debate we just had or the discussion we just had. But if Republicans continue to hijack the rules of the Senate to prevent voting rights from happening, if they continue paralyzing this Chamber to the point where we are helpless to fight back against the Big Lie, we must consider the necessary steps we can take so the Senate can adapt and act. For the past few months, Senate Democrats have been holding talks within our caucus to discern how we can best move forward to restore the function of the Senate and, more importantly, pass legislation to defend democracy and protect voting rights. Last night, I held another round of talks with a number of my colleagues about the path forward, and we did so again this morning. Over the past few days, our Republican colleagues have escalated their attacks against our efforts to pass voting rights legislation. Listen to this one: Last night, the Republican leader worked to place a number of ``gotcha'' bills onto the legislative calendar as some sort of payback for pursuing legislation to protect the sacred right to vote. He was basically saying: Here are 18 bills that Democrats don't like. Let's go for 50 votes on those. Well, I proposed to the Republican leader, in a unanimous consent request, that it would be perfectly fine with us taking votes on his bills on a simple majority threshold if, in exchange, he agreed to do the same for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Of course, the Republican leader immediately objected--immediately objected--to having all of them done with 50 votes: the 18 bills he proposed and our 2 voting rights bills. The Republican leader made clear last night that the true worry on the other side isn't about the rules of the Senate--rules they were perfectly happy to change to pursue their own objectives when they were in the majority. Republicans, in truth, are afraid of the possibility that legislation to defend democracy, to fight the power of dark money, and to protect voting rights could move forward in this Chamber. As I mentioned to my colleague from Texas, that is not all Republicans. That is not Republicans out in the country--a lot of them want to protect voting rights--but it is the Republican Party as now run by, and it is fair to say run by Donald Trump, who has propagated the Big Lie that the election was stolen and that he really won, even though he lost by 7 million votes and even though he has no evidence-- nor have the commentators to that effect. Now we have at least Republicans in the Senate and the House and in lots of State legislatures completely going along with this Big Lie. The danger there is that it jaundices our democracy. If people of color, if young people, if older people, if people in urban areas feel that their right to vote is being diminished compared to other people's--because they are not aiming this at everybody--democracy begins to wither. We have not seen an assault on voting rights since the days of the Old South, since the forties and fifties and sixties and seventies. Why would we want to regress? Why would we want to regress? So we must fight back. Now, I understand our Republicans are going to continue their opposition through a flurry of speeches, decrying any effort by Democrats to undo these voter suppression laws and make it easier for Americans to vote. By the way, I would remind my colleagues that this has been the grand tradition of America. When the Constitution was written, in most States, you had to be a White male Protestant property owner to vote. No one says let's go back to those days. In general, America, with our march to freedom and our march to equality, embodied in our Constitution and in the great minds of the Founding Fathers--the greatest group of geniuses ever assembled--has marched forward. There have been regressions, but we have marched forward. We Democrats want to continue that march. We want to stop these types of laws. The Republican leader doesn't have much to say so he has latched onto a talking point. He said the Big Lie is actually the warnings of voter suppression that come from Democrats, even though there are so many laws that are, obviously, done to suppress votes, and a lot of these Republican legislators say it openly. So I would say to the Republican leader that his attempts to misdirect from the danger of Donald Trump's Big Lie and to try to say it is Democrats who are doing it is gaslighting, pure and simple. There is no evidence--no evidence. The leader did it again yesterday and today on the floor, implying one more time that because the 2020 election was, indeed, successful, somehow voter suppression doesn't exist. Now, I answered my friend from Texas when he held up that chart. The Republican leader cherry-picked examples to distract from the real, unmistakable changes that are taking place in the States. I would ask the Republican leader and the Republican Senator from Texas and every other Republican, if the 2020 election were as successful and secure and safe as he says it was, then why have Republican State legislators rushed to make it harder for people to vote in the aftermath of the 2020 election? Why can any Republican cling to the view that the election was stolen--Donald Trump's Big Lie--when John Cornyn, my friend from Texas, is up there, with a chart, saying the 2020 election was successful, and the Republican leader said the same thing? Doesn't that rebut Donald Trump? Doesn't that rebut those who came to the Capitol, motivated by Donald Trump's propagation of the Big Lie? Doesn't it rebut all of the State legislators who want to make it harder to vote if the 2020 election were successful? Despite the Republican leader's best efforts, I have yet to hear from my Republican colleagues as to why it is OK for States like Georgia to make it a crime to give food and water to people who are waiting on line at the polls when we hear that, in minority areas and in urban areas, the lines are much longer than in rural areas. I have yet to hear from Republicans why States like Texas and Arizona have made it a felony--a felony--for nonpartisan election workers to send unsolicited mail ballot applications to voters. What is wrong with sending that? What is wrong with encouraging people to vote? The participation in elections is much higher in many Western countries than in ours. Again, Texas didn't just prohibit nonpartisan election workers from sending mail ballots out to voters. They made it a felony--a felony. These States have effectively made it a crime--a crime--for election workers to proactively help people to vote. Where is the justification? Where is the evidence of this massive fraud that Donald Trump talks about? No one gives any. Yet they predicate their policy moves here in the Senate on that. To date, I have heard no explanation from the other side why States like Texas, Iowa, and Montana have reduced polling locations and hours. In Iowa, early voting of any kind has been cut by 9 days. How does that make the election more secure? Why is that in the grand tradition of making it easier for Americans to vote? In Georgia, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the leading newspaper of Atlanta, the number of absentee drop boxes in four large counties in Atlanta, in the Atlanta area, will drop from 111 to 23--111 to 23. One of the justifications is that these boxes are no longer helpful, but this ignores the fact that over 300,000 voters used them in the last election--the last successful election, according to my friend from Texas. Republicans know that most of the people who used those drop boxes, of course, were Democrats. They tend to use them more, and that is why they are cutting them off. The examples go on and on, unfortunately. This is not just a one-off or in one State or another. This is a massive campaign, which, if we do nothing, will continue and get worse. States like Texas, Florida, Kansas, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Montana have passed laws making it harder--harder--to register to vote. States like Alabama, Iowa, and Texas have passed laws that increase the potential for people with disabilities. And, again, in Georgia, one rural county, Lincoln County, is trying to limit their polling places to just one in the whole county--just one place to vote for an entire county--causing people to potentially drive as many as 23 miles to cast a ballot. This wouldn't make voting easier. It turns it into a burden. The truth is, our Republicans can't defend these laws. They are not going to mention them here today. Let's hear some Republicans defend these laws and point to evidence of the massive fraud that they say motivates them to do it. It is bunk--bunk. The policies they have put forward have one purpose--one purpose only: making it harder for younger, poorer, non-White, and typically Democratic voters to access the ballot, to give Republicans a partisan advantage at the polls by making it harder for democratic-leaning voters to vote. Again, in a democracy, when you lose an election, you figure out why and try to win over the voters you lost. You don't stop the voters you lost from voting. That is what happens in autocracies, in places like Hungary, where Donald Trump just endorsed Orban, who is whittling away at democracy in Hungary. It is cynical--cynical--for our Republican colleagues to argue that just because these voter suppression laws don't spell their intentions out in the open, that there is nothing sinister at play. But these laws have real impact, potentially divisive. In Arizona, Mr. President, your State, the secretary of state has concluded that new laws could purge as many as 200,000 voters from their early voting list. And as you know better than me, Arizona has a long tradition of early and mail-in voting that, I think, was set up by Republicans, if I am not wrong. In Georgia, over 1.3 million voters used absentee ballots in the last election, which could now be affected by the restriction. Senate Democrats in Iowa argue that if today's voter suppression laws had been in effect in 2020, over 6,500 absentee ballots would not have been counted in the last election. This isn't all that difficult to comprehend. When you pass laws that raise barriers to voting, fewer people end up voting. That is a fact. So as the President will say later, we are approaching a decisive moment for the country. Voting rights, defending democracy have long been bipartisan issues in this Chamber. The Voting Rights Act of 1964 is one of the crowning achievements not only of the civil rights era but of the history of this Chamber. It is in no way a power grab to say the Senate will pass laws that make it easier, simpler, and safer for American citizens to exercise their most fundamental right. That has been part of the grand tradition of this country--usually, as I mentioned several times before, bipartisan. I will add: As we proceed, we cannot hang our hats on the false hopes of inadequate or sometimes chimerical solutions. Substituting the Electoral Count Act for the much needed reforms that we have in the Freedom to Vote and John Lewis Voting Rights Act is insufficient, unacceptable. Obviously, it doesn't affect the House and Senate. Obviously, it is not immediately urgent because it affects 2024. But most importantly, scorekeeping matters little if the game is rigged, and the game is in danger of being rigged if State Republicans empower themselves to arbitrate the results of future elections instead of it being arbitrated by what traditionally has happened in America by nonpartisan election workers. So we need to work in this Chamber to pass real solutions that go to the heart of the problem. We need to proceed with the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We need to proceed with the Freedom to Vote Act. All of us in this Chamber must make a choice about how we will do our part to preserve our democratic Republic. We can't be satisfied in thinking that democracy will win out in the end if we are not willing to put in the work to defend it. So we need to pass these bills so our democracy can long endure after this present danger. To continue blocking these efforts is to offer an implicit endorsement of Donald Trump's Big Lie, which, unfortunately, is alive and well in 2022. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHUMER

Mr. SCHUMER. If the Senator would yield, as long as there is no fraud, if a person in a nursing home can't get to the polling place and wants to vote and someone collects their ballot, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, that is good. That makes it easier for them to vote. With all of these things that they bring up, there has been no evidence of fraud--none. Donald Trump has not produced any evidence of fraud. He lost by 7 million votes. Yet he is saying he won the election. We all know what is motivating our colleagues on the other side of the aisle--obeisance to Donald Trump. I would guess most of them know that the election was not stolen, that the Big Lie doesn't take effect, but Trump has such power over the Republican Party--such power--that they do what he wants in the legislatures and here in the Senate. I would remind my good friend from Texas that his fellow Texans George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush proudly supported an extension of the Voting Rights Act. They proudly did that. It was bipartisan until Donald Trump came over and, in my opinion, poisoned the Republican Party on voting rights. We could use a little resistance to Donald Trump. We see it from a good number of Republicans out in the country, and we see it from a good number of Republican commentators, but we don't see it here in the Senate, and that is unfortunate. I am not going to yield for a further question. Mr. President, as I begin my remarks, let me begin with the following figure--and we will have a debate later.

Mr. SCHUMER. The last question, yes.

Mr. SCHUMER. There is a long list of them, which I have listed in my speeches. Let me just give one or two: one, making early voting places and dropoff voting places many fewer; No. 2, in the largest county-- Democratic county, African-American county--in Georgia, taking away the bipartisan ability to collect those votes; No. 3, in Georgia, making it a crime that, if you are standing in line, you can't be fed, and the lines, by the way, according to the reports I get, are much longer in African-American communities than in White suburban communities, making it much, much harder--making it a crime, rather--to give people water or a sandwich. So I am going to now give my remarks, but I thank my colleague for the question, and I am going to take the floor.