Paycheck Fairness Act -- Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, later this week, one of the most important Senate votes in the modern history of this country will take place, and that vote will be about whether the Senate begins the process to move forward on a constitutional amendment which overturns the disastrous 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision on Citizens United.

What the Citizens United Supreme Court decision was about 4 years ago is to say to the billionaires in this country, to say to the largest corporations in this country: OK, you already own much of the economy of the United States of America, but now by a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision we are going to allow the billionaires and the large corporations of this country to own the U.S. Government because they will now be allowed to spend unlimited sums of money on political campaigns.

Poll after poll tells us that whether you are a progressive, as I am, a moderate, or a conservative, all over this country people are profoundly disgusted by the ability of big money to buy elections. What democracy means, what people fought and died for is the right of you, her, and him to have one vote.

What democracy is not about is allowing the Koch brothers--a family worth $80 billion, the second wealthiest family in this country--to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to elect candidates whose job it is to make the wealthiest people in this country even wealthier while they continue to attack the needs of the middle class and working families of this country.

There was a piece the other day in the Washington Post talking about how the Koch brothers alone--just one family--has already in this election cycle put 44,000 ads on television and radio, and we have 2 months left before this election.

Does anybody believe that is what democracy is about?

In this country today we are suffering a major economic crisis. What that crisis is about is the disappearance of the middle class, the fact that since 1999 the typical middle-class family has seen its income go down by more than $5,000 after adjusting for inflation. The crisis is that all over America, working people are not working 40 hours a week, they are working 50, 60 hours a week. They are not working at one job--they are working at two jobs, they are working at three jobs, trying to cobble together an income and maybe some health care to take care of their family.

The crisis in America today is that unemployment is not the official rate of 6.1 percent, it is the real rate of 12 percent if we include those people who have given up looking for work and are working part-time.

The crisis is that youth unemployment today is 20 percent; African-American youth unemployment is 35 percent. The American people are calling out. They are saying to the Congress: Why doesn't Congress create the millions of jobs our people need. Why don't you rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Why don't you transform our energy system so we can address the crisis of climate change and move away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and create huge numbers of jobs. Why don't you rebuild our crumbling bridges, roads, water systems, and wastewater plants. Why don't you raise the minimum wage to a living wage.

That is what people tell me in Vermont and that is what people are saying all over this country.

People ask that today, despite the modest gains of the Affordable Care Act, how does it happen that the United States is the only major country on Earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right?

We have 40 million people uninsured, even more paying large copayments and premiums.

Why don't we join the rest of the world and guarantee health care to all of our people?

The answer is very simple. The answer is that Members elected to the House and the Senate increasingly are dependent upon big money campaign contributions in order to win their seats.

That is not what democracy is about; that is what oligarchy is about. Oligarchy is when you have a nation owned and controlled by a handful of wealthy families. That is where we are moving today.

On issue after issue, the American people are very clear about where they want to be going. On this issue of Citizens United, the American people are very clear that we need real campaign finance reform to prevent billionaires from buying elections. That is what the American people want. That is what they say in poll after poll. Yet it remains to be seen whether, in a few days when we vote on this issue, we will get one Republican vote. And I can understand that because the Republicans today are the beneficiaries in a very big-time way of all of this billionaire money.

A couple months ago a constituent of mine in Vermont made a very interesting suggestion. He said: Bernie, do you ever see these guys in NASCAR, the racing car drivers, and they wear their jackets, and their jackets have all of the sponsors on them? They are sponsored by Goodyear Tire Company, and they are sponsored by this oil company, and they are sponsored by this brake company. Maybe we should have the Members of the U.S. Senate wear jackets which tell us who is sponsoring them. So somebody can come forward in their nice blue blazer and say: Hey, I am owned and sponsored by the Koch brothers. Somebody else can come forward and say: No, I am not owned by the Koch brothers, I am owned by the oil industry or I am owned by Big Energy or I am owned by Wall Street. It would be very instructive, when you see people get up and vote, about why they do not want to raise the minimum wage, to find out they are controlled by significant contributions coming from large corporations.

I think it would be very interesting to see Members of the Congress wear those types of coats.

The men and women of our country know there is something profoundly wrong when 95 percent of all new income generated in this country goes to the top 1 percent. They know there is something profoundly wrong when one out of four profitable corporations pays nothing in Federal taxes in any given year. Yet the reason we are unable to come up with real tax reform--so we can find the money to help our kids go to college, so we can deal with the fact that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world--has everything to do with large corporations not paying their fair share, and that has everything to do with the types of campaign contributions these institutions make.

There was a poll that came out just the other day. They asked the American people: Should we cut Social Security? Do you know what the American people say, whether they are progressives, moderates, or conservatives? They say: You have to be nuts. We can't make it on Social Security benefits today, and you want to cut Social Security? You want to cut Medicare? But that is exactly what the Business Roundtable from corporate America wants us to do.

So we are living in two separate worlds. On the one hand you have an agenda here in the House and among many of my Republican colleagues that says: What we need to do is give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people and the largest corporations. Is that what the American people want? Overwhelmingly, they do not want that.

You have an agenda among many who say: We have to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Is that what the American people want? No, they do not.

There is an agenda among some Republicans that says: Not only should we not raise the minimum wage, we should do away with the concept of the minimum wage so that in high-unemployment areas people could work for $4 or $5 an hour.

Is that what the American people want? Quite the contrary. They want to raise the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour.

So you have an amazing dynamic right now in American society. On the one hand in the real world outside of the beltway, ordinary people are hurting. They are struggling. They are worried about their kids. They are worried about their grandchildren. They are worried about their parents. They want the U.S. Government to do something to create jobs, to raise the minimum wage, to change our disastrous trade policies. They want us to do something to make college affordable, to lower interest rates on student debt. They want us to create jobs by rebuilding the infrastructure. They want everybody in this country to have health care as a right. They want us to address the crisis of global warming. But we do not do that. Why not? Because increasingly the Congress is not responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans. They are responsive to the big-money campaign contributors, and that has everything to do with this constitutional amendment beginning the process to overturn Citizens United.

So of all of the issues out there--whether you are concerned about education, health care, the environment, the economy--the most important issue underlying all of those issues is the need to end this disastrous Supreme Court decision which allows billionaires to buy elections. That is not what people fought and died for in the name of democracy. That is called oligarchy. Abraham Lincoln talked about a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, not a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires, and that is where we are today.

I hope the American people are watching. The media has not paid, for interesting reasons, a lot of attention to this issue, but there is no domestic issue that I can think of more important for the future of this country.

Do we elect Members of Congress who are beholden to the constituents back home, to the middle class, to working families, or do we elect Members of Congress who are beholden to corporate America and the billionaire class? Do we fight to sustain the democratic foundation of this country or do we move toward an oligarchic form of society controlled by a handful of billionaire families? That is the issue. That is what this debate is all about, and that is what this vote in a few days will be about. I hope very much the American people will demand that every Member of this Senate vote for this piece of legislation which begins the process of overturning this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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