Artificial Intelligence
Floor Speech
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Mr. COONS. Madam President, the business of this body today has been the so-called SAVE America Act, a legislative proposal from my colleagues in the Republican Party that is presented as a simple voter ID bill. Who could be against that, requiring ID to vote?
But it is actually a far more destructive bill, a bill that could be characterized as the ``Save Republicans From Accountability Act,'' the bill that is designed to make it much harder to vote for tens of millions of Americans. And so to try and address some of the underlying problems, challenges, with this bill, I have offered several amendments, and I want to speak to them this evening.
My Republican colleagues who have spoken repeatedly on this floor about this bill love to say how popular voter ID is: 83 percent of Americans support it. Well, if my Republican colleagues believe we should pass this bill because of its popularity, shouldn't we start with another policy that is even more popular? Eighty-seven percent of Americans believe criminal background checks should be required for all gun purchases. That would mean closing existing loopholes that allow folks in the United States to purchase weapons without going through the background check process.
And that poll saying 87 percent support it, it is not from some leftist group; it is from FOX News. Of course, universal background checks are popular. Americans are sick of the daily tragedies of gun violence in our communities across our country. They are sick of attacks in schools, in grocery stores, at concerts, in churches, in communities. They are sick and tired of tiny coffins. So I have introduced an amendment to the SAVE Act, adding a provision that would require universal background checks. So let's get this popular and bipartisan amendment passed. And if, as my colleagues claim, the SAVE America Act is not a burden but actually a protection of the right to vote, shouldn't other constitutional rights, fundamental freedoms, be subject to the same sorts of rules? Forty-seven thousand Americans were killed in gun violence in 2023, the leading cause of death for children and teens in many States.
And the SAVE Act is presented as a solution to the problem of those who are not citizens voting. It is a solution in search of a problem. The Heritage Foundation--the Heritage Foundation--went through and looked, over decades, over all the ballots cast in 23 years and found 77 proven cases of ballots cast by noncitizens. That is a tiny percentage.
For every ballot cast by a noncitizen, 14,000 Americans are killed by a gun each year. You can tell me which is the bigger problem.
So shouldn't buying a gun be at least as difficult as voting under the bill advanced by my colleagues? My amendment would bring the same restrictions that the SAVE America Act wants to bring to voting to gun buying. If you need a passport and a birth certificate to vote, why not to buy a semiautomatic rifle? All of our constitutional rights should be protected, so why not apply the standards to the Second Amendment that my colleagues hope to apply to the right to vote?
I hope we will take it up, debate it, and pass it.
Let me speak to another amendment that I am offering to the SAVE America Act. The SAVE America Act takes away the ability to register to vote by mail or online. You have to go in person to a specific place with documents, and yet millions of Americans live in rural areas, hours away from these relevant government offices. What if you can't drive? What if you can't take time off of work? What about the cost of all that gas as the price of gas keeps skyrocketing? It would take away the ability to reregister and to vote for these rural Americans. So I filed an amendment that says: For those Americans who live 50 miles away or more from the closest election office, they can register by mail or online.
The passport process is particularly challenging for rural voters who can't get a new passport online or by mail. You have to show up in person at a government office to apply, then get to the election office to register once you get your passport. How many more hoops do my Republican colleagues want to make rural voters jump through in order to vote?
My amendment would permit those who live 50 miles or more away from a passport office or an election office to apply for their passport online or by phone.
The cost of living keeps going up. To get a passport doesn't just take time and travel, it costs $165. So I filed an amendment that would make passports for the purposes of voting free for American citizens.
The SAVE America Act has another basic flaw. It would make it difficult to vote for the nearly 70 million American women who changed their name in marriage, where their current name is different than the name on their birth certificate. That includes, obviously, many people of concern but particularly my wife and my mother have different last names today than they did the day they were born.
One of the things that is, I think, a fundamental flaw to the SAVE America Act is it allows those women to vote if they have a passport. Yet millions of Americans do not have passports, and the cost and the difficulty of getting them, I think, is too big a barrier to voting.
What about veterans? Will we actually make them drive for hours to reregister? I am working on an amendment to partner with the VA to make it easier for veterans to administer.
And so, frankly, I have many amendments I would like to discuss, but these are the few I will bring up this evening because, before we get to a final vote on the SAVE America Act, we need to perfect it because the right to vote is a sacred right in America, and this is a bill in search of a problem, not solving that problem.
Madam President, the Trump administration owes my constituents money. It owes a lot of Americans money. The administration owes you $166 billion in illegal tariff revenue. Just over a year ago with what he called ``Liberation Day,'' President Trump imposed wildly irresponsible tariffs on virtually every country on Earth, including our closest allies and those with whom he concluded trade deals like Canada and Mexico. It has damaged our relationships abroad, it has harmed our national security, and frankly, it has imposed what is the equivalent of a national sales tax on hundreds of millions of consumers.
Well, after a year of litigation, the Supreme Court ruled in February by a 6-to-3 majority that those tariffs are illegal, that under the Constitution, the tariff power--the taxing power--is assigned to the Congress, not to the President. Trump promised Americans he would bring down costs on day one, but through tariffs did the exact opposite. If someone had stolen money out of your wallet, out of your family's bank account, you would want it back.
The average American household has paid $1,700 in tariffs now declared illegal by the Supreme Court. Our President took that money out of the pockets of Americans and should now give it back, so I am here demanding Delaware's money back for Delawareans. I am a proud cosponsor of a bill to do just that. Families need that money back now because they are increasingly struggling.
Because of the war in Iran, gas in Delaware was $2.87 a gallon just over a month ago; it is now, today, $3.79. The cost of groceries have gone up. The cost of healthcare has gone up. The cost of electricity has gone up. The cost of gas has gone up. Why are these costs going up? Partly the reckless war with Iran, but also tariffs. After the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs--that is the law on which they were based--Trump proposed and put in place a new 10-percent global tariff.
One of the things I get called about the most is the cost of housing. Our little State of Delaware needs to build 24,000 new homes by 2030 to meet the demands for housing, yet many of the key inputs--lumber from Canada, drywall from Mexico, fixtures and features, the faucets and bathroom vanities--imported from outside our country face stiff tariffs.
The costs of home ownership and housing keep going up, and my Tariff Exclusion Act would eliminate those tariffs and bring those costs back down because this just isn't right or fair to the people of Delaware and our Nation--folks who are building and innovating, folks who are farming, folks who are launching small businesses, folks just trying to put food on the table, clothes on their kids' backs, and send them to school and keep them safe. They have paid too much in tariffs, and our President should pay our people back.
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