Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4033

Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I come to the floor today to urge the Senate to address the threat the coronavirus poses to our elections and to take immediate action to pass my legislation to ensure voters do not have to choose between their right to vote and their own health.

Today is Election Day in Kentucky and in New York and in Virginia. There are runoff elections in North Carolina and in Mississippi, as well. As we speak, voters in the States are experiencing what it is to vote in the middle of a global pandemic. If the past few months are any indication, for many, casting a ballot today will not be safe, and it will not be easy. The coronavirus has caused unprecedented disruptions in the daily lives of Americans.

In order to protect voters and poll workers, this pandemic has forced us to make changes to how we vote. Sixteen States postponed their Presidential primaries or have transitioned their primaries to almost entirely voting by mail. We have seen Democratic and Republican Governors across the country issue waivers allowing all voters to cast their ballots by mail during the pandemic. This includes States like New Hampshire, with a Republican Governor, and States like Ohio, where they have a Republican Governor who is focused on vote by mail, and States like Maryland, where the Governor has been devoted to vote by mail, and States like Missouri.

While it is important that individual States are taking action to protect voters during this pandemic, we must remember that, in the end, this is a national pandemic. It is not just a pandemic in Vermont or in Utah; it is national.

It is the responsibility of this Nation, of this Nation's government, and of this Congress to ensure that States have the funds they need to make our elections more resilient and to make sure voters don't have to risk their health to cast their ballots.

When we have a national threat or international conflict, we do not expect an individual State to be able to respond. In World War II, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, we didn't say: Oh, Hawaii, you go deal with that yourself.

We, in this Congress, have acknowledged that this pandemic has national consequences in how we responded with the CARES Act and how the House has responded with the Heroes Act, which I hope we will consider very soon in this Congress, and just the fact that, when it comes to voting, this Congress, with bipartisan support--this Senate voted to give over $400 million originally to the States.

There were some issues with how that money was given out that we are trying to fix, but, nevertheless, it was a downpayment on the fact that even in the beginning of the pandemic, based on what we had seen in Wisconsin, we anticipated that there were going to be problems for voting and that there was going to be a massive change in how our elections were held.

You have States like New York State where only 5 percent of people have voted by mail in the past few Federal elections and States like my own State of Minnesota where, despite having the highest voter turnout in the country, only 25 percent of people on average voted by mail. Now you are seeing switch overs where 50 percent, 60 percent of the people in every single State in the Nation are asking to vote from home or, in the alternative, they are asking for safe voting places by keeping voting places open longer for early voting, by training poll workers so we do not depend on our senior citizens to be staffing the polling locations when they are the most vulnerable to the coronavirus. This is common sense.

This is why you see Republican Governors and Republican secretaries of state joining Democratic Governors and Democratic secretaries of state all across the Nation to ask for help from Washington.

Today, in Kentucky, New York, and Virginia, election officials are putting more than $36 million of Federal funding to good use--funding to recruit and train new poll workers, to provide those workers with protective equipment and sanitizing supplies; funding to pay for postage for mail-in ballots, purchase additional equipment, and cover the costs of moving poll locations to accommodate more people. I am proud of having fought to secure that funding.

I appreciate Senator Blunt, my colleague, who I know is going to be here shortly and is the chair of the Rules Committee, for assisting in making sure that funding was designated, as well as Senator Shelby, Senator Leahy, Senator Coons, and so many others who have worked on this important issue.

It is a good first step, but let us remember these are still the primaries in a few States. If you talk to election officials across the country, they will tell you that it wasn't enough and that they desperately need more resources for the general election when so many more people vote. Support from the Federal Government is vital because we have seen States struggle when it comes to administering elections during the pandemic. We also know it is not as if they have a reservoir of funding right now to deal with, which is one of the reasons we want to pass the Heroes Act.

Many of our State and local governments are struggling right now. That is why it is so important to designate funding as we move forward--and I hope we will soon discuss the Heroes Act--to be able to help pay for elections.

Support from the Federal Government is vital because we have seen States struggle when it comes to administering elections. With fewer than 6 months left before the general election, Congress must act now to ensure that States have the resources and funding that they need.

A lot of times you hear: Well, it is only 6 months, so why would we do funding now? Look at the fact that we were able to at least assure the States that the money was going to be out there for them a few months ago for the primaries, and they were able either to spend their own money because they knew that money was coming or to spend designated money. That is how this works.

We are no longer in a normal situation. We are in a situation where States are having to rearrange how they do elections all over the country to make it safe and to allow people to vote from home. We have seen the chaos and disenfranchisement that will happen if we don't act soon.

The Wisconsin primary will forever be etched in the memory of our Nation. Voters stood for hours in the cold and rain, wearing garbage bags and homemade masks, just to be able to exercise their right to vote. In Milwaukee, there were just five polling locations open instead of the usual 180. Almost 600,000 people live in Milwaukee, including one-third of that State's African-American population. The closure of so many polling places made it even harder for people without easy access to transportation to get to a polling location, and it caused unnecessary crowding, with lines to vote wrapping around blocks. As a result, voters were disenfranchised, and some even contracted the coronavirus. According to local health officials, nearly 70 people in Wisconsin who either voted in person or served as poll workers contracted the virus as a result of that election.

Earlier this month in Georgia, thousands of people went to the polls and were also met with long lines and confusion. Reports from Atlanta indicate voters faced malfunctioning machines, and some voters never received the mail-in ballots they requested. Instead of being able to safely vote from home, many were forced to show up in person on election day. I was particularly struck by the words of Anita Heard, an 80-year-old woman from Atlanta who actually marched with Dr. King. She was the first person in line at her polling location at 6 a.m. waiting to vote this year. Anita called the long lines and waits unfair and ridiculous. She is right.

In Fulton County, one voter, who is a mom, sat on a lawn chair holding her infant son in one hand and umbrella in another. She waited more than 3 hours to vote. She wasn't leaving because it was important to her and her son that one day she would be able to tell him she waited to vote for him.

In America, people should not have to wonder if voting machines will be operational or if they are going to be able to receive their ballot on time to make it count.

Jose Andres--the remarkable chef who helps feed people in areas struck by natural disasters--announced a plan to provide food, water, and resources to help people standing for hours in line on election day. He is doing his part to address this issue, as are so many people across this country, including, as I mentioned, Democratic and Republican secretaries of state and Governors.

I appreciate that Senator Blunt, the chairman of the Rules Committee, is here. As I said, he worked to help us get that initial funding. Experts have warned that today in Kentucky we may see a repeat of the chaos that we have seen in early primaries. Reports indicate fewer than 200 polling places are open in the entire State, down from the 3,700 in a typical election year. We are glad that Kentucky has voted by mail and a number of people have voted from home.

I think we also know, just based on what we have seen in these other States--this is just based on facts, not on partisanship--that 200 polling locations in a State of that size will not be enough in the primary and certainly will not be enough in a general election. In order to protect the right to vote, we have to learn from States that are taking steps to make voting safe and easy.

Primary turnout this year has broken records in many States, especially when it comes to voting by mail. States like Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, New Mexico, Idaho, West Virginia, and North Dakota have all held successful elections this year by relying heavily on voting by mail. Again, that is in a primary where some of these States have fewer voters--not all of them--because they are smaller population States, and many of them are not dealing with a general election.

In West Virginia, mail-in ballots increased from just 25,000 in 2018 to over 200,000 this year. In Pennsylvania, the number of mail-in ballots cast increased from 80,000 in 2018 to over 1.5 million this year. Voters and election officials across the country in Red States and Blue States are turning to casting a ballot from home.

In addition to the five States that already hold their elections mostly by mail, which are Utah, Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii, and Washington--and I note that those States are not all Blue States, including, particularly, Utah, and Colorado, which is known as a Purple State--three States, including California, Nevada, New Jersey, and also the District of Columbia have decided to send all voters absentee ballots for elections this year. There are 13 States that have decided to send all voters absentee ballot applications.

These decisions weren't made, as I note, on a partisan basis. Both Republican and Democratic officials in States have decided to implement these policies to protect their voters.

I will also note that none of the five States that held their elections primarily by mail this year have had major voter fraud scandals since transitioning to vote by mail. As the New York Times editorial board announced, States who use vote by mail encountered essentially zero fraud.

Oregon, the pioneer in this area, has sent out more than 100 million mail-in ballots since 2000 and has documented only about a dozen cases of proven fraud. Rounded to the seventh decimal point, that is 0.0000001 percent of all votes cast.

We have all seen the President's tweets on this. We know these tweets are meant to hurt our democracy, and people shouldn't fall for it because I just gave you the facts: 0.000001 percent of all votes cast in the States that have been using this forever involved any fraud.

We must set the record straight. I appreciate that Senator Romney recently noted that nearly everyone, in what he called his very Republican State of Utah, votes by mail, and, in his words, it works very, very well.

Now is the time to reject efforts to undermine our political system and mostly undermining people's attempts to exercise their fundamental right to vote safely. What are you going to tell a veteran who has a preexisting condition, like the guy who wrote me who served in Vietnam and said what is he supposed to do now? We have to allow them to vote from home.

In the midst of this pandemic, we need to make sure no voter has to choose between their health and exercising their right to vote. That is why I am urging my colleagues to support my legislation with Senator Ron Wyden, which is cosponsored by 35 other Senators, the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act, to help State election officials meet this pandemic head-on.

Our legislation doesn't require us to reinvent how we vote. Instead, our bill would overcome the challenges posed by the coronavirus by expanding existing election practices like voting by mail and early voting. It starts with guaranteeing every American the option to vote by mail. Sixteen States require voters to provide an excuse if they want to cast a ballot by mail. But during the pandemic, 13 of these States are allowing all voters to cast a ballot by mail without needing to provide an excuse--Democratic and Republican Governors and secretaries of states. That is progress.

I would say, while we still have three States that are still denying all voters the option to vote by mail--forcing them to choose between their health and their constitutional right and go through these hoops to do it--why not put a standard in place on the Federal level? That is what our bill does.

Our legislation would also get help to the States. Again, my friend, Senator Blunt, is here, and I appreciate--while he hasn't put a dollar amount on it, his interest in looking at funding for this beyond this bill, I think, is very helpful.

Our bill called for $3.6 billion, which is what is in the Heroes Act, of funding to safely administer elections. It would knock down barriers, this bill, to safely vote, like the requirement to have your ballot signed by a witness or a notary. These are requirements that disproportionately hurt minority voters--people without as much money.

There is one story of a person sitting in a hospital room trying to get someone to notarize a primary ballot through a glass window-- someone who has coronavirus. Are we really going to require them to do that? Are we really going to do that? That is what you have to ask yourself, colleagues. The bottom line is, it shouldn't be this hard to vote.

I am proud that this bill has been endorsed by more than a dozen organizations, including the group founded by former First Lady Michelle Obama, including Voto Latino, including the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, the National Urban League, Common Cause, the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights.

As I noted, the CARES Act included funding. It didn't include the standards that I think are necessary but included the funding. That is just the beginning. That was a downpayment--negotiating in the middle of the night. I know that because I was talking to my colleagues back then.

This is the real deal, to be able to help States in the general election. This money was included in the Heroes Act. Public health experts have warned over and over again of the possibility of a new wave of this virus in the fall. We have to be ready. States are having this happen anyway, and we should make sure that they have the funding to do it.

I know we are going to be discussing the National Defense Authorization Act in the next few weeks, at some point. I think about that. Our defense is important, but, remember, this is about the defense of our democracy. The simple idea that this was a democracy; that it is not a dictatorship; that people should be able to go out there and exercise their right to vote no matter how they are going to vote, no matter what party they are going to vote for, and this is the moment--and because of this pandemic, we need to do it.

The last thing I will mention, three polls released in the last couple of months show an overwhelming majority of voters--over 80 percent favor measures to make voting safe and easy. One of the polls conducted in six battleground States showed that 74 percent of voters wanted their Senators to support legislation in Congress to implement voting reforms, including a majority of Republican voters. Think about that. Voters across party lines want Congress to pass legislation that would guarantee the right to vote by mail and provide funding to States and make sure it is safe to vote. That is what this is about.

Again, I thank my colleague, Senator Blunt, for all he has done and the fact that he was able to work with us when we did negotiate the CARES Act to make sure there was some funding included, as well as I mentioned Senator Shelby, Senator Coons, Senator Leahy, and others. 4033, the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act of 2020, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I want to thank my colleague for his work and his friendship. We obviously don't agree on every aspect of this. I did enjoy hearing his desk story. I didn't know he had Harry Truman's desk. When I got to the Senate, I asked for the desk of Hubert Humphrey, the ``happy warrior,'' and about 8 months later, the desk arrived, and they had accidentally given me the desk of Gordon Humphrey, the former Senator from New Hampshire, and I had it for quite a while. In a new Senate, I one day opened up the desktop and saw that they had replaced it with the desk of Hubert Humphrey. So I would give these comments in the spirit of the ``happy warrior''; that is, while you and I disagree on setting these standards, at this moment I think we should; I think if not now, when?

When it comes to things such as not having notaries for getting a ballot and things like that, I am heartened by the fact that, No. 1, we have a hearing, which has been asked for--I think it is really important, and I appreciate that--on this upcoming election.

No. 2, you continue to be open to discussing with me and with the Appropriations Committee the funding as we go into November. I think that is really going to be important for all voters, whether in red, blue, or purple States. We know that so many people vote by mail, including the President of the United States with a ballot from Palm Beach, FL. We all want to have that ability and make sure people in our States have an ability to either vote by mail or vote safely at the polling places this fall.

Thank you very much.

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today and thank my colleague from Oregon and also thank him for his work on the voting bill. We just had a discussion with Senator Blunt about that, and while we didn't agree on the bill, there is a discussion that is ongoing--as we head into another COVID package, possibly, which we really believe we need to--on working on some funding issues for the States as we look at more and more balloting from home and how important that is.

I want to thank Senator Wyden for his leadership for so long on that issue. I brought up his home State in a speech about an hour or so ago and the work that Oregon has done with ballot-by-home and, I think, ballots from home.

I actually think I used the number of percentage of fraud as 0.0000001, or something like that, to show that what the President said is not true; that we have had, actually, in many States across the country--including Utah, a redder State--a big success with voting from home. Justice in Policing Act

Mr. President, I rise today on another matter, and that is to urge the Senate to consider meaningful, comprehensive legislation to make systemic changes to our justice system that will save lives--save lives in the Black community and save lives in all communities of color that have experienced injustice for far too long.

I am deeply concerned that the bill on the floor this week fails to meet this moment. It has been nearly 1 month since George Floyd was murdered in my State. We all watched as his life evaporated before our eyes. It was a horrible thing.

People who watched it, whether they were in law enforcement or whether they were just regular citizens who saw this, it hit home to many of them for the first time--and many of them, sadly, in the African-American community for many, many times before that--how truly unjust this is and how immoral this is.

His death was horrifying and inhumane, and it galvanized a nationwide movement for justice.

As Members of the U.S. Senate, we have a responsibility to respond to that call with action, and that means, when you have systemic racism, that you must address it with systemic change.

Some of that is happening in our State and local governments. That is a good thing. But some of that must also happen here. This is not just an issue for one city or one State--my home State--nor is it an issue at just the local level. There is a lot of work that needs to be done at the local level, and that has been acknowledged by mayors and police chiefs across the country.

There is also really important work that we must do here. I was proud to join my colleagues in introducing the Justice in Policing Act, led by Senators Booker and Harris, which makes comprehensive changes to our justice system that are long overdue.

These reforms--including police officers being held accountable for misconduct, reforming police practices, and improving transparency-- will be good for our Nation. The Justice in Policing Act will help to prevent more tragedies like those we have seen--prevent murders.

It is widely supported by groups like the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the National Urban League.

The House is expected to pass the bill this Thursday. Then it comes over here. But instead of taking up that bill, the Justice in Policing Act, Leader McConnell has brought a different bill to the Senate floor: the JUSTICE Act.

My problem with it is, despite the name and despite a lot of the words that we are hearing on the other side, it doesn't get us to where we need to be. In this moment, as people are still marching and demanding change, we cannot confront these urgent issues with half measures or equivocation.

I have serious concerns that this bill does not respond to the nationwide call for justice. Unlike the Justice in Policing Act that is going to pass the House, the bill we are considering here in the Senate lacks critical reforms to strengthen Federal pattern-and-practice investigations, a reform that is urgently needed after we all saw the video of the police officers standing right next to each other with George Floyd pinned down--pinned to the ground.

I have called on the Department of Justice, with 26 other Senators, to conduct a full-scale investigation into the patterns and practices of the Minneapolis Police Department, and any bill that we consider should make sure the Civil Rights Division has the authority and the resources they need to conduct a thorough investigation.

By the way, our calls have still gone unheeded. During the Obama Justice Department time period, 25 of these cases--pattern-and-practice investigations--were brought. During the Trump Justice Department time period, just one unit of the Springfield, MA, Police Department went through a pattern-and-practice investigation.

I don't know what more proof we need than the fact of the video and the fact that there were other officers standing nearby, the fact that we have called for this with 26 Senators but, still, we await any final word from the Justice Department.

They have informed us that they are still looking at this, but in the meantime, our Department of Human Rights in the State of Minnesota is stepping in to fill the void. I don't think that is the ideal way to do it. You would like a Justice Department that has experience doing this in other jurisdictions, but our State's Department of Human Rights is now stepping in and conducting its own pattern-and-practice investigation.

The bill on the floor fails to help States conduct their own investigations, as I just mentioned, to address systemic problems in culture, training, and accountability at police departments, like what the Minnesota Department of Human Rights is now conducting. By the way, with the proper resources and the experience they are gleaning from former Justice Department officials and the like, this is one way to handle some of this, in addition to the Justice Department.

At a time when our Justice Department has failed to take up these investigations, this provision that is in the Justice in Policing Act is even more critical.

We must also take action to put an end to practices that unnecessarily put people's lives at risk. I worked with Senator Gillibrand and Senator Smith of my State on provisions in the Justice in Policing Act to ban Federal law enforcement officers from using choke holds and other neck restraints and to prohibit States from receiving certain Federal funding unless they have passed laws to ban these practices.

We have used this method in the past, and if there is significant funding attached to it, States will react.

The bill on the floor this week from our Republican counterparts only bans certain types of choke holds--those that restrict airflow but not blood flow--and only in certain situations. This does not go to the point that we need it to go to get the kind of systemic change we need in our criminal justice system.

Critically, the Republican proposal does not include necessary changes to hold individual officers accountable for misconduct, like making records of police misconduct public. Real change comes with accountability and, as drafted, the Republican bill does not provide it. That is why it is opposed by civil rights and criminal justice groups, and it is why the attorney for George Floyd's family--and I had the honor of speaking with George Floyd's family--has said that this bill is ``in direct contrast to the demands of the people.''

So where do we go from here? Well, we can start by calling up the bill that will be coming over from the House. We can start by agreeing to work together. Let's have a bipartisan process to develop the consensus bill that we need based on the bill that is going to be coming over from the House.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I have seen what happens when we work together to get something done. That is how we passed the FIRST STEP Act, which passed the Senate with a vote of 87 to 12 by reaching across the aisle and by actually doing something--not just a bill full of platitudes or studies but actually doing something, which is what the people are calling out for now.

By the way, there are a lot of good police officers out there, including ones who work around us, and when you put strong standards in place, they meet those standards.

To allow that conduct that we saw on that video to go without national changes to our policing would be just to say, well, it is just this incident in Minnesota, which, of course, is being prosecuted by our attorney general, Keith Ellison. That is how you could resolve it if you thought it just happened once and it just happened in one State, but we know that is not true, my colleagues. We know that is not true. That is why it is so important to take action and pass the actual bill.

We already started this process in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Last week, we held a hearing on these issues. We heard testimony from local leaders like St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and law enforcement officers from across the country.

I heard a lot of agreement among many of those who testified--not all of them but many of them: support for banning choke holds, establishing a national use-of-force policy--these are police chiefs--creating a public database of public misconduct, and ensuring independent investigations of police-involved deaths, something I pushed for in my former job.

You cannot have the police department that the officer works for investigating this conduct. That is wrong, as I said publicly years ago.

There are areas where we can find agreement, but we have to mean it. Chairman Graham said at the hearing that he hopes the Judiciary Committee could consider what has been proposed and ``come up with something in common.''

Well, we start with the bill that is going to be coming over from the House, the bill that has been sponsored in the U.S. Senate by Senators Booker and Harris.

Instead, Leader McConnell is asking us to consider a bill that was drafted in their caucus, yes, but without the input of so many of us who have seen firsthand the damage that has been done here. He is, then, moving that bill directly to the floor instead of letting the Judiciary Committee consider it. I think that fails to make the kind of meaningful change we need in our system.

This is a moment for urgent action, but it is also a moment for fundamental change. If we respond to all of those people out there and the family of George Floyd--whom I got to meet and sat across the pews from at that memorial service--if we respond with silence, then we are complicit. If we respond as the President has suggested, with dominance and by waving a Bible in front of a church for a photo op, then we are monsters.

If we respond with action--meaningful action--colleagues, then we are lawmakers, and that is what the people of our State sent us to do.

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