As Senate Considers Republican Police Reform Bill, Cantwell Calls for Strong Federal Role to Protect Civil Rights, Ensure Accountability

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I come to the floor to talk about the civil rights of all Americans and ask my colleagues to vote for a process today that will lead to laws that will protect those civil rights. Unfortunately, the motion to proceed to predetermined legislation is just a predetermined outcome for a weak bill.

There is no agreement today by the majority leader and the minority leader on a bipartisan bill. Everyone around here knows the way to get good bipartisan legislation. It starts with a committee process that is open and public and an amendment process. You can, and we have, done things like we did with COVID, where we get a bipartisan group of members together to discuss legislation and put something before Congress. Or you could bring up a bipartisan bill on the Senate floor. But that is not what is happening. That is not what is happening.

What is happening is a predetermined process to get a bill that is not good enough for the American people. Voting yes is just an attempt to dictate a weak outcome when what America wants more than anything else is justice. They want justice, guaranteed by a strong Federal response. Leader McConnell said, in talking about the Republican efforts, ``it would encourage smart reforms of law enforcement without steamrolling states and local communities' constitutional powers.'' Elsewhere, he said Democrats want to overreach, ``Federalize all of the issues.''

Well, with all due respect to the majority leader, it is called the Federal Civil Rights Act for a reason. It wasn't right to deny Rosa Parks a seat on a bus when she was fighting for her Constitutional rights. It wasn't right to deny African Americans access to hotels or lunch counters when they were fighting for their civil rights. It wasn't right to use police dogs on Black women trying to register to vote in 1964 in Mississippi when they were fighting for their voting rights. I guarantee you, it is not good enough and would not be good enough to give them 75 percent here. Rosa Parks was not looking for 75 percent; she was looking for someone to uphold her rights.

I spoke last night with one of my constituents, Stan Barer, who worked for Senator Warren Magnuson. As a staffer, he drafted the Accommodations Clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as one of his first jobs on the Senate Commerce Committee. Can you imagine coming to the U.S. Senate as a young lawyer and getting a job on the Commerce Committee and the first thing you have to do is draft the Accommodations Clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

I can tell you what he told me. He said: Advocates then tried to minimize the Federal role. That is what we are hearing today, minimize the Federal role. Where would we be if President Kennedy had taken that approach? He fought for equal protection under the law for access to education and to end discrimination and segregation when Southern Governors wouldn't do so. There is a Federal role in protecting the civil liberties of all Americans, and we should not be abdicating it today with this vote.

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1871 after the Civil War when Black Americans faced violence from the KKK and White supremacists in Southern States. It gave them the right to seek relief in Federal court when their Constitutional rights were deprived by someone acting in official capacity. It is those same civil rights that we should be upholding today, upholding those rights--making sure that there is not police brutality. That is what the U.S. Department of Justice is supposed to do. It is supposed to fight to uphold those rights. But we know we have a problem because President Trump and Attorney General Barr have repeatedly abdicated those responsibilities, have failed to uphold those civil rights. Because as the top law enforcement officer in the land, Attorney General Barr could be directing and supervising U.S. attorneys and prosecuting those Federal crimes as violations of civil rights.

Well, I know that that is what President Obama did. I know that he worked hard to make sure the U.S. DOJ Civil Rights Division oversaw pattern and practices of police abuses and entered a number of consent decrees with major cities, including in my State. Yes, the Attorney General is supposed to uphold the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable seizure and the civil rights laws that protect against excessive use of force. But that is not what is happening. Under the Trump administration and Attorney General Barr, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division police practice group has been reduced to half. It has not opened a major pattern or practice investigation, and Trump and his administration have been pulling away from this important role. It started with Jeff Sessions. Jeff Sessions made it harder to reach consent decrees with cities. So instead of playing the Federal role that we are supposed to play, we have an administration that is enabling bad practices to continue by not stopping them.

So, yes, there is a Federal role, there is a Federal role here today, just as there is with voting rights, just as there is with access to public places, just as there is with education and fighting discrimination. In fact, I think that is the central question of this debate. Are we going to have a strong Federal role in protecting the Constitutional rights of all Americans to prevent excessive force by police? It is pretty basic. We want to see a law that says that choke holds should be banned. We are not looking for 75 percent, we are not looking for study and analysis, we are looking to protect the Constitutional rights of all Americans.

So it is no surprise that the NAACP and Urban League have said that this legislation that our colleagues have proposed on the other side of the aisle does not meet the moment to end racial justice. I ask my colleagues, when are we going to? Maybe the information age has laid bare for us and all our eyes to see that this problem has to be resolved.

Are we going to uphold the Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure and the civil rights protecting against excessive use of force by police? Are we going to uphold the rights of all Americans, or just some Americans? I would say to my colleagues, if we are not upholding all the Americans' rights, then we aren't really upholding America's civil rights. We have to ask ourselves, what moment are we living in when somebody thinks 75 percent is enough, and it is study and analysis, when we are talking about protecting the rights of all Americans?

My mom has been ill and so I've been spending a lot of time with her talking about family history, talking about this moment in our history, and she told me a story of how she was a young girl. She was born in 1932, so you can imagine the era that she lived through. But she told me when her older brother got to go to school, she got to stay home and ride his tricycle, so she thought that was the best. You know, he started kindergarten, she could ride his tricycle up and down the alley. And she met a woman, an African-American woman, who became her friend--her first real friend as a young child.

And she got to know that woman so well that my grandparents, in the neighboring building, helped with an election and saw that people were lining up to vote. White people were allowed to come into the building and be warm, but the African-American people had to stay outside in the cold and wouldn't be allowed to come into the building to vote, a great discouragement. Thank God my grandfather went out and built a bonfire and then left to go to work.

But when you look at the history of our country--and we still see voter suppression issues today--that is why we have to ask ourselves the fundamental question. When it comes to the civil rights of Americans, a report, 75 percent, is not enough. A clear line ending excessive abuse and declaring choke holds illegal is where we need to be.

I ask my colleagues to turn down this measure on a weak, predetermined path and get a real bipartisan effort and uphold the civil liberties of Americans because, I guarantee you, America really is watching.

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