-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as 2022 gets underway, working Americans and their families are facing a steady stream of significant challenges: the fastest growing inflation in almost 40 years; violent crime rates continue to rise, with many of our largest cities setting new alltime records for murders; a southern border that remains in crisis; a new highly contagious variant of the virus that President Biden promised he would personally crush; too few tests and too slow new treatments on this administration's watch; and another rolling wave of school shutdowns, as Big Labor bosses continue to make hostages out of children's futures over a virus that leaves children largely-- largely--unharmed.
Late last year, one poll asked Americans about the most important problems facing the country. Some were most worried about the high cost of living. Others said, not surprisingly, the pandemic. One-fifth of respondents, the most by far, said the biggest issue was poor leadership--at a time when the Democratic Party controls the entire government.
But do you know what wasn't on the list of concerns? It wasn't there at all--the fictional, scary stories the liberal activists keep repeating about how democracy is at death's door. The November 2020 election had the highest turnout in 120 years. Ninety-four percent of voters said voting was easy. Only 33 percent of Americans say it is currently too hard for eligible voters to vote. And a larger number than that actually say current laws are too loose--too loose.
The American people are not buying this nonsensical talk of ``Jim Crow 2.0'' or a voting rights crisis. Everybody, apart from leftwing activists and the press, understands this emperor has no clothes at all.
A few months ago, even voters in blue New York rejected multiple ballot measures to soften up election laws the way liberal activists prefer. This fake outrage is just a predicate for Washington Democrats to do something they have sought to do literally for years: appoint themselves a nationwide board of elections on steroids.
This is the takeover that Democrats have sought for multiple years, using multiple different justifications. It is not a voting rights bill. It is a sprawling, sweeping takeover of our democracy. Our colleagues' bill would do things like forcing all 50 States--all of them--to legalize corrupt ballot harvesting. They would have the government send public funds directly to political campaigns.
The same Attorney General who has frivolously sued Texas just to placate the White House, whose Department of Justice tries to intimidate parents, would be handed new power to micromanage election law.
Some early drafts of this bill tried to literally, openly turn the Federal Election Commission into an outright partisan body. Talk about tipping your hand.
These changes wouldn't bolster faith in our democracy or in our institutions. It would do exactly the opposite. It would be a civic wrecking ball. And, listen, that is before you consider that Senate Democrats want to destroy our own institution to ram this through.
The current Senate Democratic leader once said that nuking filibuster rules would be a ``doomsday for democracy.'' Just a few years ago, more than 30 Senate Democrats joined a bipartisan letter supporting the legislative filibuster.
President Biden defended the principle in long, passionate speeches throughout his entire career. Just last year, as President, he repeated that destroying the filibuster would ``throw the entire Congress into chaos.'' He certainly was right about that.
There is no partial or limited nuclear option on the table. As the Senator for West Virginia put it yesterday, whenever you start talking about carving things out, you end up eating the entire turkey.
No party that would trash the Senate's legislative traditions can be trusted to seize control over election laws all across America. Nobody who is this desperate to take over our democracy on a one-party basis can be allowed to do it.
Finally, it is beyond distasteful for some of our colleagues to ham- fistedly invoke the January 6 anniversary to advance these aims. Washington Democrats have been trying to seize control over elections for years. Their first draft of the legislation at hand was introduced in January of 2019. The fact that violent criminals broke the law does not entitle Senate Democrats to break the Senate.
It is surreal to hear sitting Senators invoke January the 6th to justify--listen to this--to justify breaking rules to grab outcomes they have not earned.
I am going to say that again. It is surreal to hear sitting Senators invoke January the 6th to justify breaking the rules to grab outcomes they have not earned.
It is surreal to hear sitting Senators invoke January the 6th to argue that institutions can be trampled because they would like a different result.
A year ago, the Senate didn't bend and it didn't break. We held strong. It is jaw-dropping for colleagues to propose to commemorate that by breaking the Senate themselves in a different way.
A year ago, there was a lot of talk on this floor about protecting the norms and institutions of our democracy by putting long-term bipartisan traditions ahead of short-term partisan power. Someday soon, it appears, we may learn which of us, actually, really meant it.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source