Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. KENNEDY. Despite my great admiration for the senior Senator from Illinois, I am objecting for three reasons.
The first reason I can best explain by telling you a story.
An oilman was talking to his banker one day, and the banker said: Mr. Oilman, you know, the bank loaned you $1 million to rework all of your old oil wells, and they went dry.
The oilman said: It could have been worse.
The banker said to the oilman: Mr. Oilman, we loaned you a second $1 million to drill brandnew wells, and they all went dry. What do you say about that?
The oilman said: It could have been worse.
Then the banker said to the oilman: Our bank loaned you a third $1 million to buy new drilling equipment, and it all broke down. What do you say about that?
The oilman said: It could have been worse.
The banker was now very upset. He said: What do you mean it could have been worse? We loaned you $3 million, and you lost all of it. What do you mean it could have been worse?
The oilman said: It could have been my money.
The cost of this bill is $1 billion--nine zeros. If I started counting to a billion right now by one numeral a second, I wouldn't finish until 2051. I would be dead as a doornail. I wouldn't make it. A billion is a lot. We toss around ``a billion'' these days like it was a nickel. A billion seconds ago, it was 1986. Ronald Reagan was President. That is how much a billion is. A billion minutes ago, the Romans were conquering Mesopotamia. As I made the point the other day on the Senate floor, a billion hours ago, the Neanderthals were roaming the Earth. A billion is a lot.
We have a $22 trillion deficit--12 zeros. We have to pay this money back. I am running out of space, and we are probably going to run out of digits if we keep borrowing.
My first concern is the money. Now, if we had not given any money to our colleagues at the State level, that would have been one thing. Yet, as my good friend knows, 2 years ago, we gave the States $380 million to combat election fraud. They haven't even spent it all yet. So, yes, I have concerns about the money.
Point No. 2, we did have problems in 2016, and I join the senior Senator in wanting to do everything we possibly can to keep it from happening again, which we did in 2018. We all had a classified briefing down in our room. I don't know the particular name of it, but it is in the Capitol Visitor Center. It is classified. You have to leave your phone and your iPad outside. We had the Director of National Intelligence there and the FBI Director, and I think we had every general there from the Western Hemisphere. We went over the 2018 elections. They went off without a hitch.
Have you read any articles about our having problems in 2018 like we had in 2016? No. Do you think if we had problems in 2018 that the members of our press would have pounced on it like a ninja? Yes. Yet you haven't seen those articles because 2018 went off without a hitch. This was, in part, because we gave the States $380 million to solve the problem, and they have not spent it all. So a reasonable person would wonder why we would want to give them another $1 billion of American taxpayer money at this juncture.
We also asked the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and every general who was there: Are you ready for 2020? Every single one of them said, categorically, unequivocally, unconditionally, yes. Every single Senator, both my Republican friends and my Democratic friends, walked out of that classified hearing impressed.
The third reason I, regretfully, have to object to this bill--and I am not ascribing this intention to the Senator from Illinois. I am not--is that some of my friends on Capitol Hill would like nothing better than to take over elections in America, to have our election system federalized. Right now, we don't have one election system; we have 50 election systems. Every State runs its elections its own way, usually by the Secretary of State. Now, I believe that is a matter of federalism. I don't see anywhere in the U.S. Constitution or in the Federalist Papers where it reads the U.S. Government ought to be running elections for States.
No. 2, our States do a great job. Yes, we had a lot of activity on Facebook and Google and within other aspects of social media, but we haven't heard one allegation--or at least any proof of an allegation-- that any votes were stolen in 2016, much less in 2018. That is because our Secretaries of State did a good job. It is also safer to have every Secretary of State and every State in charge of its own election system because, if a foreign government wants to hack your system, it has to go to 50 different States. It has to do it 50 times. If we nationalize elections--yet again, give the Federal Government more power--all a foreign national has to do is to hack one system.
Again, I am not ascribing this motive or this intent to my good friend from Illinois. I am not. Yet there are some who would like nothing better than to nationalize State elections and have them run by the Federal Government. Then the Federal Government could tell the States what to do--what kinds of machines to use, whether they need paper ballots, how to order the ballots. If they have electric machines and one has to walk into a booth, the Federal Government could tell the States what kinds of and what color of curtains they would have to have. Then they would have a Federal agency get involved, and it would start promulgating regulations. Before you would know it, casting a vote would be like building a bridge.
It is a matter of federalism. Those who disagree with me will say: Oh, Kennedy. You are exaggerating. This bill doesn't do that. It doesn't federalize elections.
Yes, it does.
Do you know how we federalize things around here? We get the object of the federalization hooked on the money. Those who want the Federal Government to run everything never go right at it. They sneak up on them. We say we are going to give them $380 million, and they get a little addicted. Then we are going to give them $1 billion, and they get a little more addicted. Sooner or later, they are addicted to the money, and then the Federal Government has got them.
And that is what worries me about this bill.
I am going to offer another bill after we are done today that I hope my good friend from Illinois will at least consider supporting. This bill is not going to cost $1 billion, I can assure you. This bill is going to require the chief election official of every State--usually, that is the Secretary of State, as the senior Senator knows better than me--to disclose to the Election Assistance Commission the identity of any known foreign national who has physically handled ballots, machines, or has had unmonitored access to storage facilities or tabulation centers used to support elections or unmonitored access to election-related information or communication technology.
What does that really mean? That means that if a foreign national at any stage of the chain of custody has access to the machine or has access to the ballot, that has to be disclosed.
Now, if you want to do something to stop foreign nationals from interfering with our elections, we don't need to spend $1 billion. We need to pass this bill.
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Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, sir. I am getting to that.
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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I agree so much with what the Senator from Illinois has said, but we are on top of this.
Let me say it again. We gave the States $380 million to address the problems in 2018. They haven't spent all of it. It is 3 gallons of crazy to give them another billion dollars.
We have been assured by all of the relevant Federal officials that we are ready for 2020. I am going to repeat once again: We had no problems in 2018.
If I thought for a second that our voting system was in jeopardy, I would be joining with my good friend the Senator, but I am not much for just spending taxpayer money, with a $22 trillion deficit, just to be spending it.
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