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Floor Speech

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Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, a few weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg and a train of other tech executives traipsed in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, took their oaths, and answered questions.

Mark Zuckerberg did something really quite remarkable for the first time, I think, ever. Zuckerberg stood up and turned to the parents who were there that day and spoke to every parent in America and said that he was sorry for what his company has done to the young people whose lives have been lost, to the families whose lives have been destroyed, to the parents whose dreams have been dashed and shattered. He apologized.

You know, I will say apologies are good, and his apology was long, long overdue, but an apology is not enough.

Now, these tech companies--they are bad actors. We all know that. If you are a parent--I have three kids at home--you know they are. What are they trying to do to your kids? They are trying to get them to spend as much time on that cell phone as possible. They are willing to push anything to them. Child exploitation material? You bet. You bet. Whatever it takes to get them online longer so they can take their data and sell them stuff. That is their bottom line--money, money, money. Those are the companies.

But what about this body? See, I think the question today is not so much about these companies. We know what they are doing. We know what their bottom line is. What about the U.S. Senate?

I think the question we have to ask is, Is this Senate--are they going to demonstrate some independence? Because here is what it looks like to me: It looks like, to me, the biggest corporations in the world, the biggest corporations in the history of the world, have a hammer lock on the U.S. Senate. It looks like, to me, no piece of legislation that those companies don't want will move across this floor. If they don't want it, it doesn't move on the floor. If they don't want it, it doesn't get a vote. If they don't want it, it doesn't happen. They call the shots.

We have seen this before in American history. We have seen corporations try to buy this body. The railroads did it. Other companies tried it a century ago. Here we are. The robber barons of this era want to own the Senate just like they have owned it in the past. It is time that we stood up and demonstrated that our oath is not to some corporation and their bottom line, which comes at exploiting our children. Our oath is to the Constitution of the United States and to serve our constituents--to serve the families, to serve the children, to serve the people who have no voice. That is the choice in front of us.

It is time for the Senate to show that the Senate is not bought and paid for. It is time for the Senate to show that the people are in charge of this House, not the corporations--not Mark Zuckerberg, not the people who write campaign checks, but the people. That is what we are doing here today on this floor.

I am proud to join Senator Graham and Senator Durbin and to come as many times as it takes until we can get a vote to protect our children and to reclaim the independence of the United States Senate.

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