Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Relating to ``Update of Commission's

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, so the Spanish philosopher, Jorge Santayana, is credited with the saying, ``Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.''

When it comes to January 6, we would all do well to heed that advice. But right now, there is an effort on the part of the House Republican leadership to make sure we forget that that fateful day ever happened.

Later today, the House will vote on establishing an independent Commission to investigate the events of January 6, a complement to the investigation in the House and Senate committees. Both sides negotiated for months. The House Republican leader made three specific requests in February. All three were granted by House Democrats. Modeled after the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, it will have equal representation from both Democrats and Republicans. Subpoenas can only be issued if Members from both sides agree.

It appeared we had reached a consensus with the support of rank-and- file Republicans and, frankly, I thought the Speaker was being very generous because subpoena power is so important when you look into something, but she did that. I salute her for it. But even when she went that far, at the eleventh hour, the House Republican leadership turned tail, threw its own negotiators under the bus, and decided to try to sabotage the Commission. Once again, they are caving to Donald Trump and proving that the Republican Party is still drunk off the Big Lie.

Just one week after House Republicans fired Congresswoman Cheney for simply telling the truth about the election, their new leadership is trying to kill a bipartisan investigation--a very down-the-middle bipartisan investigation--of the attack on our Capitol.

At the root of both efforts is the shameful desire to protect Donald Trump and perpetuate the Big Lie, even though it undermines our democracy, because when people don't believe elections are on the level, that is the beginning of the end of a democracy.

What the Republicans are doing--the House Republicans--is beyond crazy. To be so far under the thumb of Donald J. Trump, letting the most dishonest President in American history dictate the prerogatives of the Republican Party, will be its demise. Mark my words. Whatever that means for Democrats, it is bad for America.

We all know there needs to be a thorough and honest accounting of what took place on January 6, the greatest attempt at insurrection since the Civil War. We have to make sure such a despicable event never repeats itself. That is why we need the investigation.

Getting at the truth is more important now that some Republicans are trying to rewrite history. It is just incredible what they are doing. How dishonest can they be, in abject fear of the most dishonest President who has ever sat at the White House, Donald Trump, who will tell lies at will? He doesn't care. It is only his own ego. We know that. One Member said it was a ``boldfaced lie'' to call it an insurrection and likened the mob to a ``normal tourist visit.'' Give me a break.

Several Members have spread the lie that it was actually Antifa that stormed the Capitol and so have some commentators on one of our leading news networks--shamefully, shamefully.

One Republican went so far as to say the mob, not the police, were the real victims of the violence that day. Can you imagine being in the family of one of the police officers who died or was injured? It is bad enough, but hearing that? How far will they go in obeisance to the lying President Donald Trump? How far?

These are dangerous lies rooted fundamentally in the Big Lie that has seemingly enveloped the Republican Party. Shame on them. Shame on the Republicans for choosing the Big Lie over the truth--not all Republicans, but the majority who seem to be doing it. Shame. Shame on them for defending the mob over our Capitol Police officers. And shame on the House Republican leadership for punishing Republicans who tell the truth, instead of those who poison faith in our democracy.

Here in the Senate, we will have a vote on the January 6 Commission. The only way to stop these lies is to respond with the truth, with facts, with an honest, objective investigation of what happened that day.

An independent Commission can be the antidote to the poisonous mistruths that continue to spread about January 6. That is what our Founding Fathers believed in. They believed in a fact-based nation, and they believed the facts will come out. People will have different views when they see those facts and assemble those facts, but they believe in the truth.

I can't think of a time when a political party has been so abjectly far away from the truth than the perpetuation of the Big Lie.

So again, the Senate will vote on the January 6 Commission. It ought to gain bipartisan support. There are reports--sad, unfortunate reports--that the Republican leader here in the Senate might be following his House colleagues down the rabbit hole and will oppose the Commission. I hope that isn't true.

But the American people will see for themselves whether our Republican friends stand on the side of truth or on the side of Donald Trump's Big Lie Voting Rights

Mr. President, on voting rights, the Texas State Senate recently passed a bill that repeals all requirements for carrying a handgun, including a valid license, registering fingerprints, and 4 hours of training. Texas would be the sixth State to pass a permitless carry law, with Louisiana waiting in the wings. If both Texas and Louisiana pass these laws, fully a third of Americans would live in States where it was legal to carry firearms without training or a license.

Just one week after the Texas legislature advanced that law to make it as easy as possible to carry a handgun, it advanced another law to make it harder to vote. You need stringent identification to vote and no identification to carry a handgun. What the heck is going on in Texas?

Just think about that for a moment. Across the country, Republican legislatures are removing all barriers to carry firearms, while at the same time putting up barriers around voting. The political right wants to make it easier for felons to get a gun but harder for younger, poorer, and non-White Americans to vote. It is hard to think of a more reactionary vision for our country, a more backward-looking vision, a vision that eventually will be repudiated not only in the history books but in our Nation's politics.

Sadly, as voter suppression laws sweep through Republican State houses from Florida, Montana, and everywhere in between, the political right is actually bragging about how successfully they are restricting the franchise.

Last week, a spokesperson for Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the far-right think tank, told a group of Republican donors that Heritage Action was drafting new voter restrictions and literally handing them over to State legislatures in order to give the laws ``that grassroots feel.'' She went on to crow about how ``quickly and quietly'' her organization managed to get new limits on voting passed in Iowa. She told the donors that she looked at her team of rightwing lobbyists and said: ``It can't be that easy.''

That is how the far right is talking about making it harder for Americans to vote. Behind closed doors, with well-heeled donors, they are laughing about how easy it is to limit American voting rights, and that is because Republican legislatures, from one end of the country to the other, are eagerly and willfully going along. It is despicable.

In this country, in a democracy, when your side loses an election, you try to win more voters over. You don't try to stop the other side from voting.

But seizing on that Big Lie that the election was stolen, Republican legislatures are orchestrating the greatest contraction of voting rights since the end of reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow.

These laws cannot go unanswered. Senate Democrats are moving forward with legislation, S. 1, to combat this rash of voter suppression laws. It has gone through the Rules Committee, and it will receive a vote here on the Senate floor.

Our Republican colleagues need to decide if they are going to stand up for democracy or not. Clean Cars for America

Mr. President, on one final matter, clean cars, yesterday, at an event in Michigan, President Biden declared that the future of the auto industry is electric. He is absolutely right.

But even though the transition to electric vehicles has already begun, it is progressing too slowly. China is outpacing the United States in the electrical vehicle market, and the only way we are going to meet our ambitious climate targets is to accelerate the transition to zero-emission vehicles.

That is why I was so glad to hear President Biden get into the specifics and talk about the many ways that government, industry, and labor can partner up to put more electric vehicles on the road and create more jobs in the process.

At the heart of that effort is legislation called Clean Cars for America. It is a proposal I drafted and introduced several years ago, and now it has become a central component to the American Jobs Plan and President Biden's Build Back Better agenda.

Through a mixture of point-of-sale incentives for consumers, charging infrastructure investments, and support for American manufacturing of electric vehicles, it would make electric vehicles affordable for all Americans and create thousands and thousands and thousands of good- paying union jobs in automaking, construction, and battery manufacturing.

We need a large-scale effort to achieve an electric vehicle future. Clean Cars for America is the way to get there.

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