Business Before the Senate

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the Senate Judiciary Committee has really been in business for a few weeks now, and I think we have begun this session addressing some of the relevant issues that I expect such a committee to address.

First, of course, was the appointment of Attorney General Merrick Garland. I thank Senator Grassley for his cooperation on a bipartisan basis in bringing that nominee to the floor, where he received 70 Senate votes--bipartisan support for his leadership at the Department of Justice. We continue this week with two more of President Biden's appointments to the Department of Justice: Lisa Monaco and Vanita Gupta. They will be considered by the full Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

We will continue to fill vacancies in the administration as we are sent nominees and have that opportunity, but in addition to that, we have had hearings on several relevant topics and have another one starting tomorrow.

Christopher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was called before the committee for an oversight hearing. It is the first time in more than a calendar year that the head of the FBI was actually brought to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a committee that has the traditional oversight responsibility for his Agency. His testimony was important and timely. He talked about the Trump-inspired mob that attacked this Capitol and the rise of domestic terrorism in the United States. He identified it as one of the major threats to security in our country, and we are considering legislation to empower him and others in the administration to address this threat.

That does not take anything away from our efforts to staunch any inspired international terrorism, but we have learned, unfortunately, that in addition to looking across the ocean for threats of terrorism, in America today, we have to look across the street. Unfortunately, there are domestic terrorism groups. We saw them on parade January 6, and they are still at their work. They must be stopped to make sure that America is safe for everyone.

That was an important hearing. We followed it up last week with the first ever Senate hearing on the Equality Act. The Equality Act, which has been passed by the House of Representatives, has been sent to the Senate for consideration. Senator Merkley from Oregon is the lead sponsor.

Simply put, the bill is there to end discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. I thought it was a very powerful hearing. Most Americans are surprised to learn that although we now recognize marriage by people of the same gender, in many States, there is no protection against discrimination for those same people. It is a gross disparity in justice in this country, and I thought our witnesses brought that point through very clearly. I hope that we can gather bipartisan support for that measure quickly and bring it to the floor. It is long overdue.

Tomorrow we are having a hearing which is, unfortunately, very timely. I announced last week that this hearing on commonsense steps to reduce gun violence in America would be held this week. On the same day I announced that hearing, a gunman murdered eight people in a string of shootings near Atlanta, GA--one man, seven women, and six of the victims were Asian Americans. He committed these murders with a gun he had bought the same day. That day, children lost their parents, husbands lost their wives, and fear of trauma reverberated across America in the Asian-American community.

I know that the Presiding Officer and I reached out to people in our home State of Illinois to assure them that we are aware of this and are going to do everything we can to stop this type of discrimination and this terrible violence that followed.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 27 mass shootings in America this month--27 mass shootings this month--with a mass shooting defined as an incident where at least 4 victims are shot. Mass shootings, of course, make the biggest headlines, but day after day, week after week, the deadly toll of gun violence grows. Last weekend, 20 people were shot in our city of Chicago, 4 of them fatally. Across the Nation, every day, we lose on average 109 American lives to gunfire--suicide, domestic violence shootings, accidental shootings, and homicides--and another 200 Americans are injured by guns each day.

The numbers are sobering, and that is why tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to address this issue. The subcommittee chairman, Dick Blumenthal from Connecticut, will take over the full committee hearing after I make some opening remarks. I know he has a special feeling for this issue because of the tragedy in Newtown, CT, just a few years ago when a gunman went in and killed so many innocent children and their teachers at a grade school. It was one horrible event. It was an event that was so horrible, many of us said: That can make the difference. Politically, that is going to change America. It is going to result in things happening finally--commonsense, constitutional gun safety measures that will keep guns out of the hands of people who would misuse them.

Well, I would have lost that bet. Many others would have, too, because we failed to respond in a timely fashion. What stopped us from passing a bill in the U.S. Senate for background checks to make sure that convicted felons did not purchase guns legally in America and would be stopped because of roadblocks we put in their paths and that people who were mentally unstable would not have access to guns which they could use to hurt innocent people, as we have seen over and over again--what stopped that from happening? A rule in the U.S. Senate. It is called the filibuster, and what it says is, it takes more than a majority for the overwhelming majority of the American people to see gun safety in America. It takes 60 votes in a Senate evenly divided 50- 50.

Well, we are hoping--we are just hoping--that maybe there is a sentiment, a bipartisan sentiment, that could reach 60 votes on thoughtful, commonsense gun control that will really say to people: Yes, you have your Second Amendment right to own a gun legally, responsibly, and to store it safely. You can use it for sporting, target practice, and self-defense if you wish. But we want to make certain that we eliminate as much as possible those who would misuse those firearms.

It is interesting. The overwhelming majority of firearm owners across the Nation believe that same thing. They don't argue with the premise that they want guns to be in the hands of people who will use them responsibly. Yet, despite this overwhelming majority sentiment, we can't get the bill through the U.S. Senate for the very reason I mentioned, the filibuster.

So when Senator McConnell comes to the floor each day to defend the filibuster, the basic question you have to ask him is, If the Senate can work with the filibuster, show us. Show us. Show us that if we bring 45 or 50 votes to the floor, there are 10 Republicans who will join us and work with us to pass important legislation. That wouldn't be the only thing. There would be many other things.

I have heard speeches on the floor by so many Republicans about the situation on our southern border with immigration, and it truly is a challenge. I work on it because it is the matter that I have paid a lot of attention to in my career but also because it is subject matter in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Why is it that we have not addressed immigration reform in the United States? The filibuster, that is the reason. The filibuster has stopped us from passing measures like the Dream Act.

I introduced the Dream Act 20 years ago to say, if you are brought here to the United States as a child, raised in this country, you ought to have a path to legalization and citizenship so you can stay in the country you call home--a simple premise overwhelmingly supported by the American people.

Five times I brought the Dream Act to the floor of the Senate for passage: Let's make this a law. Five times it failed. Why? The filibuster rule. Each time I had a majority but not the necessary 60 votes. That is another example of where the filibuster has stepped in and stopped a majority of the Senate from passing a measure which was timely, I believe thoughtful, and which the American people overwhelmingly supported.

So I would say to the defenders of the filibuster: Show us it can work. We have had so little legislative activity that was subject to this filibuster rule over the last several years, and, obviously, some Senators are very content with that. I am not. There is work to be done, not just in the areas I have mentioned but in so many others. Infrastructure programs for Americans are a good example too.

Let's get to work in the Senate and do what we were elected to do: to deliberate, to legislate, to amend, to express different points of view but, ultimately, to enact laws that will make this a better nation.

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