Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to address the growing crisis in our country, in our cities and towns across our country: a crisis of law and order, yes, a crisis of the rule of law, a crisis of confidence, a crisis of solidarity. As our cities and towns come under siege, as so many of them descend into violence and lawlessness night after night, we witness before our eyes the fraying of the American fabric, the breaking of American bonds.

The violence that we are witnessing is not just about the individual lives harmed or lost, neighborhoods destroyed, businesses burned and looted, families living in fear, whole neighborhoods cowering behind locked doors. No. The devastation that we are seeing, the crisis that we are facing is about the confidence in our society itself, in our ability to come together, to live together, to find common ground, to build this common community and pursue that more perfect union. All of that is under threat in this current crisis of lawlessness, of lack of respect for the rule of law, of the decline of due process and law and order.

Let's just be clear. These are not peaceful protests that we are seeing across the country. They are violent and increasingly violent riots and attacks and looting, and I am sorry to say that too many in the media and my colleagues across the aisle are appeasing the mobs and the Marxists whose desire is to burn our cities down, to burn our neighborhoods to the ground.

These attacks are occurring because they are increasingly enabled by the mainstream press and local and national politicians who are pushing a historically fraudulent version of American history, one where America is a fundamentally racist nation, one where America is systemically evil, one where police officers are cast as agents of oppression.

What our leaders fail to recognize is that our police officers, the brave men and women in blue, those who choose day in and day out, of their own volition, of their own accord, to go out to the streets, to put their lives on the line to serve and protect their neighborhoods, their fellow citizens, and to stand for our values--those police officers are an example and exemplars of our deepest held and most cherished beliefs because, without those police officers--let's just be clear--the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, those things are just words on a page.

Without law enforcement officers giving their lives, risking their lives to enforce and make available the fair and equal rule of law, well, our Constitution is just a parchment barrier. It may as well not exist.

Now, our police officers are the best among us. They are the guardians of our neighborhoods. They are the sentries on the streets. But too often now, in the press, right here in this body, we hear attacks on police officers, we hear rushes to judgment. These voices of criticism don't see police as human beings, as working men and women whose experience and lives mirror our own, and too often these critics don't see the suffering, the suicides, the low morale that police officers across this Nation face.

The consequences of this mistreatment that law enforcement are facing in this country are becoming ever clearer. Police departments are facing increasing retirements. They are struggling to retain the officers they have and struggling to hire new ones. Local law enforcement report plummeting morale as officers face increasing violence and police departments struggle to pay their officers a salary that is commensurate with the work that they do, work that is more challenging today with the riots and looting sweeping across our cities.

What our officers need is not less funding. What they need is not defunding. What they need is not disrespect. What they need is support. What they need is for the leaders of this country and the good men and women of this country to say: We are with you; we support you; we will stand with you in the important and vital job that you do. They need more funding, not less; more recognition, not less.

Our Federal Government exists to provide for the general welfare. Well, I believe it is time that Congress lived up to that promise. So let's make it simple. Let's give our officers a pay raise. Let's give a pay raise to every cop in America, and let's do it right now. Let's provide new funding for police departments across this Nation to hire more cops and to put them out on the beat. Let's put our money where our mouth is and stand by our law enforcement in this vital time for them and this vital time for our Nation.

That is why, today, I am introducing legislation to back our police. My bill would authorize new funding through the Department of Justice to permit State and local police to raise the salaries of officers up to 110 percent of local median earnings. That is a real wage boost, and it would be available under my bill right now. It would provide funding to hire new officers to boost manpower, and it would withhold this funding from any city or jurisdiction that defunds their police and tries to cut officer pay.

I can tell you, for law enforcement in States like mine, in Missouri, this could mean a raise of thousands of dollars a year, and our law enforcement deserve it. Not only would this legislation help officers; it would help all Americans by working to build a safer nation for our families to thrive and our communities to grow as one people together. Through safety, we can have solidarity.

This bill is named in honor of David Dorn, the retired St. Louis police captain who was killed in June trying to protect his neighbors and his friends and his own neighborhood from violent looters. It is dedicated to all of those officers who have been a victim of violence this year.

It is time that we rejected the false narrative that the police are inherently oppressive; that America is inherently evil; that structural racism and structural oppression define this country, its past, its present, and its future; and that the police are instruments of this oppression, of this history, of this evil.

It simply isn't true. Instead, it is time to stand, again, with our law enforcement, to affirm the vital work that they do, to affirm the vital role that they play in making available the rule of law for every American, in making available and protecting the vital rights of every American. And it is time--by recommitting ourselves to safe streets, to the rule of law, to due process--to work on reforging those bonds of community, of solidarity, and of togetherness that are being torn apart night after night after night with the burning and the rioting in our streets.

It is a fundamental choice we face. No nation can long endure lawlessness. No nation can long endure the breakdown of the basic operation of law. That is why the job that our law enforcement officers do night after night on that thin blue line is so vital. It is time that we stood up and thanked them for it. It is time that we stood up and supported them in it.

May God bless our men and women who go to stand on that line every night ______

By Mr. McCONNELL (for himself, Mrs. Gillibrand, Ms. McSally, and Mrs. Feinstein):

S. 4547. A bill to improve the integrity and safety of horseracing by requiring uniform safety and performance standards, including a horseracing anti-doping and medication control program and a racetrack safety program to be developed and enforced by an independent Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

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