January 6 Commission
Floor Speech
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Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, colleagues, this coming Monday is Memorial Day. Many of us are making our plans to commemorate the holiday, the weekend, where we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our Nation and in defense of our democracy-- those brave Americans and so many others who have worked, fought, and died for more than 200 years to protect our system of government--of the people, by the people, for the people. Upholding that legacy is our highest duty, and it is in that spirit that I rise today.
On November 3, 2020, I was serving as California's secretary of state. It was my privilege for 6 years to serve as the chief elections officer in our Nation's most populous and most diverse State, and I can tell you that even in the best of times, election administration is complex. Elections are consequential operations.
Last year, our elections workers at all levels of government faced the additional, unprecedented challenge of administering an election during a global health pandemic. And I am proud to say that they rose to the occasion to protect the democratic legacy that we hold and trust. And, as a result, California's election officials administered an accessible, secure, and safe election, which drew historic voter turnout. Indeed, by every objective measure, the 2020 elections were a national success.
But none of this mattered to President Trump, who had spent years attacking the integrity of our elections by repeatedly lying about voter fraud and ``rigged elections,'' even the election that he won in 2016.
President Trump was furious at his 2020 loss, and he chose to take a sledgehammer to the core of our democratic system. He didn't just refuse to concede the election--breaking a tradition that dates back to Thomas Jefferson--President Trump attacked the very notion of a peaceful transition of power.
Along the way, he filed and lost more than 60 cynical lawsuits challenging the election. He personally called State elections officials and pressured them to alter vote tallies--tallies that had been counted, recounted, and audited.
And he lied to the American people, tweeting out a steady stream of conspiracy theories and disinformation denying his electoral loss.
Online and around the country, President Trump's Big Lie caught fire. Sadly, many Republican officials participated in fanning the flames, spreading fears of voter fraud for political gain. Others stood by silently as President Trump radicalized his supporters with falsehoods. They chose loyalty to Trump over the truth, delusion over democracy.
Let me be clear. These allegations of fraud had no basis in fact. They were rooted in Trump's ego and cemented in White supremacy. And they led directly to the deadly insurrection of January 6, an unprecedented attack on our Nation's Capitol by violent extremists against the U.S. House of Representatives and this Senate, invited and incited by the President of the United States.
Armed rioters brutally beat Capitol Police officers and stormed this building. The Confederate flag, the symbol of violent White supremacy, flew inside this Capitol for the first time in our Nation's history. Members of militarized hate groups searched these hallways with the intent to kill elected leaders of both parties. They made their way to this very floor to try to stop the certification of the Presidential election, and in so doing, they terrorized our staff, Capitol Police, the free press, our citizens across the country, and our democracy itself.
Through their violence, the January 6 rioters disrupted our democracy at the behest of President Trump, and our Nation lost the right to call the transition of power peaceful.
Now we gather in the wake of this armed insurrection, the deadly insurrection. The scars of January 6 can still be seen throughout the building. Yet many of my Republican colleagues say: We just need to move on. Let's just move forward.
They say that this deadly attack was simply a group of ``peaceful protesters'' on a ``normal tourist visit''? They claim that the proposed Commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection is unnecessary because we have already increased Capitol security and our congressional committees are already investigating this attack.
These arguments are outrageous. Of course we need an independent Commission to fully investigate the causes of the attack. We need to know the whole truth about January 6. We need and the American people deserve an independent, bipartisan investigation that will give us the facts and allow us to begin the hard work of restoring public trust in our democracy. It is the only way to ensure that an attack like this does not happen again.
The bipartisan bill we are considering is modeled after the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. Imagine arguing in the wake of 9/11 that the only problem that we needed to address was airport security. That is how ridiculous this counterargument is. To brush aside the January 6 attack on the American people would be the ultimate dereliction of our duty.
Colleagues, we swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. So I call on my Republican colleagues to live up to that oath, live up to that sacred duty. And if you cannot, if your hand is frozen by fear of those who were misled to believe that the election was stolen, if your hand is frozen out of fear of the President who sold that lie, then the insurrectionists have succeeded.
I urge the Senate to authorize the January 6 Commission on a bipartisan vote, but if our Republican colleagues refuse to join us, then we will face another choice: Do we continue to defend our system of self-government or defend the filibuster? The stakes could not be higher. The choice could not be clearer. The peaceful transition of power must be defended.
Colleagues, this is a moment where we must put country over politics, put the institutions of our democracy over the abuse of the filibuster. On January 6, our government was attacked, and now the future of our democracy is on the line. Let's act like it.
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