Justice in Policing Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, a free society depends on the rule of law, which is the foundation for public order and peace. Police are the indispensable guardians of that law. We rightfully honor them for the risks they assume every morning when they put on the badge and sometimes the bulletproof vest, knowing they may not come home at night to take them off.

But the police have a sworn duty to wield their power with justice. They take an oath never to betray their character or the public trust. They must hold themselves to the highest standard and overwhelmingly do so.

But in the cases when they do not, the consequences can be devastating. What happened last week to George Floyd in Minnesota was horrific. He was killed by police officers--dying at the hands of men who pledged to protect and serve their communities.

I am glad that justice appears to be moving swiftly in George Floyd's case. The officers who participated have been terminated from the department, and the criminal process is well underway.

But this is little consolation to many Americans, including many Black Americans, who feel they have experienced unjust, unequal interactions with law enforcement. Many have protested peacefully for change in the finest tradition of our country. And in sharp contrast to the rioters and looters, who have exploited this tragedy for their own purposes, we must now seek to reveal national unity from the wreckage of broken trust and broken glass on our streets. To do this, we will need to be guided by our Nation's noblest principles, while rejecting the anti- American suggestions of radicals who want a revolution.

Every American deserves to be treated equally by their government, as guaranteed by our Constitution and our country's most fundamental principle that all men are created equal. There is no greater bulwark to tyranny and injustice than that old, simple proposition. But we must reject efforts to scapegoat and demonize all police for the actions of a few, and we must reject radical proposals to dismantle and defund police departments, as some have suggested.

These proposals are offered in the spirit of revenge that would lead only to more crime, more lives lost, and more sorrow. The communities that would be hit the hardest by the disappearance of police would be the most disadvantaged. When police are understaffed and undertrained, there is greater risk of mistakes and misconduct, not to mention higher rates of crime.

By contrast, a well-staffed, well-trained, and well-respected force is a blessing to its community and a scourge to criminals who threaten it. Defunding the police would be deadly. It isn't a solution but an insult to good officers, and a threat to law-abiding citizens.

Americans are not blind to injustice. We all understand the hard work that is needed to repair trust in this country, but defunding the police is not the answer. We need the rule of law and equal just under law. We need them both.

I urge my colleagues to join with us in passing this resolution, which calls for justice for George Floyd and other victims of excessive use of force, while also honoring the law enforcement officers who keep us safe.

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, if the Senator from New York would like to enter into a colloquy, I did not hear an objection to a single sentence of that resolution, to a clause of that resolution, to a word in that resolution, which calls for justice for George Floyd and other victims of excessive force and also says that the Senate opposes radical ideas to defund the police.

So if the Senator from New York would like to explain to the Senate what part of that resolution he opposes and why he is objecting, I would welcome to hear his answer.

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Mr. COTTON. Reclaiming my time, I have not yielded the floor.

So I would just point out this. Let's be clear what just happened here. We have a resolution. It is a couple of pages long. The Democrats have had it for 24 hours. Until just moments ago, we had no indication that they planned to object or that they had any other contrary resolution.

We have heard objection from the Senator from New York not to a single word of that resolution itself--a resolution which, I will say again, calls for justice for George Floyd and for all victims of excessive force, as well as opposes radical efforts to defund the police.

So I will only conclude that the minority leader is here to speak on behalf of the Democratic Party and defend this radical idea to defund the police, since he is unwilling to cite what part of that resolution he opposes.

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Mr. COTTON. We had a resolution on the floor, a couple of pages, calling for justice for George Floyd and victims of excessive use of force, as well as condemning the radical idea of defunding the police.

Now, the minority leader wants to offer a resolution that would immediately make the pending business of the Senate--at some distant, speculative time in the future--a piece of legislation which, if I am not mistaken, hasn't even been written and filed yet in the House of Representatives. Now, maybe it has been written in the last day or two and I am not aware that they filed that bill, but it certainly hasn't been debated and voted on in the House of Representatives.

There is all the time in the world to decide what is going to be the pending business in the U.S. Senate when the Senate acts, but we have a resolution right in front of us that condemns the unjustified killing of George Floyd, calls for justice for his death and all those victims of excessive use of force, and also--since the Senate opposes the radical idea--of defunding the police.

Yet, the Democratic leader, on behalf of his party, objected to that without citing a single word, a single clause, a single sentence that he finds objectionable. I assume it is because they do, in fact, want to defund the police.

I know he keeps talking about rhetoric versus action. I will just remind you that the Senate, on almost every day we are in business, passes multiple resolutions by unanimous consent. If I am not mistaken, I think the Democratic leader was on the floor last week trying to pass a resolution condemning the President once again. So the idea that we don't pass resolutions expressing the sense of the Senate or, for that matter, there is a choice between passing such a resolution and taking action is simply foreign to the way the Senate acts every single day.

I will just say again that what we are seeing here is the Democratic leader apparently objecting on behalf of the Democratic Party in defense of the radical idea that we should defund the police.

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, if the Democratic leader, again, would like to engage in a colloquy, I will ask him, is the bill that he wants to make the immediate pending business of the Senate even written in the House of Representatives?

Since he has departed, I guess the answer to my question is, no, that bill is not even written and filed in the House of Representatives, and certainly it has not been voted upon in the House and sent to the Senate for us to make it the pending business.

So the objection you just heard, again, didn't object to a single word in our resolution, much less a clause or a sentence--a resolution that calls for justice for George Floyd and the victims of the excessive use of force, while at the same time opposing radical Democratic proposals to defund the police. I can only infer, since I didn't hear a single objection to the language of our resolution, that the rub of the matter is that the Democrats really do support defunding the police.

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