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Floor Speech

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Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, just this week, we saw the College Football National Championship game. A lot of tremendous athletes engaged in tremendous feats of skill and strength, but I have to say, there wasn't an athlete on the field who demonstrated the flexibility that we are seeing in the U.S. Senate right now. We are today seeing Democrats in the Senate, with the active encouragement of President Joe Biden, engaging in not one but two partisan power grabs and doing them both with a twist. Let me explain.

Democrats are desperate to hold on to power. It is their No. 1 priority. It is more important than anything else. It is more important than jobs and our economy to Democrats. It is more important than getting kids back to school. It is more important than defeating COVID. Nothing matters more to today's Democrats than staying in power no matter what.

How do we know that? Well, the very first bill introduced in the House of Representatives, H.R. 1, is a bill many of us call the ``Corrupt Politicians Act.'' It is a bill designed to keep Democrats in power forever. That was Nancy Pelosi's No. 1 priority.

The very first bill introduced in this Chamber, S. 1, is likewise the ``Corrupt Politicians Act,'' a bill designed to keep Democrats in power forever. It is the No. 1 priority of elected Democrats.

When that failed to get sufficient votes to pass, Democrats shifted to option 1B. Option 1B has the same objective--keep Democrats in power forever--but it is through a little twist, a sleight of hand. Now, Democrats want to subject every significant decision concerning voting to the unreviewable--in most instances--arbitrary power of an unelected bureaucrat in the Federal Department of Justice.

My State of Texas has 29 million people. Those 29 million people have democratic rights. They have rights to elect legislatures that reflect their views, their policies, their values. Do you know what Senate Democrats say? We don't care. We don't care what those 29 million people want; we, the Democrats, want to stay in power.

So let's take, for example, photo ID. I have in my wallet my driver's license. Most people do. Voter ID is a policy that is supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans. Roughly 80 percent of Americans support voter ID, requiring a driver's license to vote. Two-thirds of African-American voters support voter ID. It is overwhelmingly supported across the country.

Do you know who doesn't support it? Elected Democrats. Sadly, every single Democrat in this Chamber has been willing to go on board with proposals to strike down voter ID laws. Here is what the Democrats want to do: They want to say that even though the voters of Texas want voter ID because we want elections with integrity--we want to know that if you come in and vote and say your name is John Doe, that you are not somebody else pretending to be that person--congressional Democrats don't care. They want to have an unelected bureaucrat with the ability to strike that down--and likewise with ballot harvesting.

Ballot harvesting is one of the most corrupt practices in this country. It is the practice whereby paid political operatives go and collect the ballots of other people. So, for example, you have a young operative from the DNC come into a nursing home and go room to room. Now, some of those residents may no longer be competent to make a choice. They may not be aware of their surroundings. But for an unscrupulous operative, that doesn't stop them. That operative can sit there and say: Sir or ma'am, you want to vote for so-and-so, don't you? They can fill out the ballot for them.

Do you know what? If there is some obstreperous senior in a nursing home who says, ``Gosh, I really want to vote for the other guy,'' well, it is very simple for the unscrupulous operative to take that ballot-- ah, this ballot is for the other guy--and magically it ends up in the trash, never gets mailed in. They can just mail in the ballots they agree with and throw away the ballots they disagree with.

There is a reason the majority of States have made ballot harvesting illegal: It invites voter fraud. By the way, it wasn't long ago when people on both sides of the aisle recognized this.

The most significant bipartisan effort examining voter fraud: the study of a bipartisan Commission called the Carter-Baker Commission. Baker is former Republican Secretary of State James Baker. Carter is former Democratic President Jimmy Carter. The Carter-Baker Commission concluded that voter ID was an important step to stopping voter fraud. The Carter-Baker Commission concluded that voter fraud was a real and significant problem undermining the integrity of elections. The Carter- Baker Commission identified ballot harvesting as one of the most dangerous practices encouraging voter fraud.

As I said, the Carter in Carter-Baker Commission was former Democratic President Jimmy Carter--hardly a rightwing Republican operative by any stretch of the imagination.

It used to be, when sanity was permissible in the Democratic Party, that people would acknowledge the obvious. Unfortunately, we are in hyperpartisan times. So, today, Senate Democrats want to be able to have laws on voter ID, want to have laws prohibiting ballot harvesting struck down by one unelected bureaucrat.

By the way, who is that bureaucrat? Currently, it is a woman named Kristen Clarke, head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. Ms. Clarke is one of the most radical, partisan nominees ever to serve in the U.S. Department of Justice. She is one of the leading advocates in the country for abolishing the police.

By the way, every single Democrat in this Chamber voted to confirm her despite the fact that she is one of the leading advocates in the country for abolishing the police. She has been a hardcore, leftwing, partisan advocate her entire life.

Now, she is entitled to have her views. She is entitled to believe those views passionately. But here is what Senate Democrats want to do: They want to take this one person and say she can strike down the laws adopted by legislatures elected by 29 million Texans. That is extraordinary.

Now, what could justify such a thing? Well, we saw Joe Biden give an incredibly demagogic, racist speech accusing half the country of being racist, of being Bull Connor.

The Democrats say this is Jim Crow 2.0. You know, Madam President, ironically and I think inadvertently, the Democrats are telling the truth. They don't mean to be, but they are. What was Jim Crow 1.0? Jim Crow 1.0 was laws that were written almost exclusively by elected Democrats. If you look at the authors of Jim Crow, they were Democrats, as were the founders of the Ku Klux Klan. The purpose of Jim Crow laws was to do one thing: stop the voters from voting Democrats out of office because, if you look at the African Americans who were freed from slavery, they were electing Republicans. In many instances, they were electing Black Republicans. And the Democrats didn't want that. How dare the voters select someone not from their party. So Jim Crow was written to strip the right to vote from the voters who dared to vote against Democrats.

Well, fast-forward to today. The ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' is Jim Crow 2.0. It is once again written by Democrats to strip the right to vote from the American people to prevent them from voting Democrats out of office.

Listen, a lot of Democrats are really nervous right now. Pretty much everyone in Washington recognizes that in November, we are going to see a wave election. Pretty much everyone in Washington understands that in November, Republicans are going to retake the House of Representatives, probably by a big margin, and there is a very good possibility we will retake the Senate as well.

Democrats can't defend their policies. They can't defend the rampant inflation that is hammering seniors and working-class people across the country. They can't defend the chaos at the open borders. They can't defend the jobs being destroyed. They can't defend the lawless and abusive vaccine mandates. And they certainly can't defend their catastrophic surrender and failure in Afghanistan.

It has gotten so bad that when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris went down to the State of Georgia, Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate running for Governor in Georgia--and, I would note, Stacey Abrams still maintains to this day she won the last election. She insists the last election was stolen and she is the sitting Governor. Apparently this is a reelect campaign. Stacey Abrams refused to show up, to be seen with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Even while Biden was giving this racially demagogic speech, which Stacey Abrams has made a career of doing, Ms. Abrams did not show up for the speech. She said she had a scheduling conflict.

The Presiding Officer and I have both served some time in the Senate. We have both seen instances where the President of the United States was visiting our home States. I can tell you, as a Senator, you make time to be there if you want to be there. It is clear that Ms. Abrams did not want to be there, that she looked at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and sees their poll numbers plummeting, she sees their policies failing, and she wanted to be nowhere near that.

So what is the Democrats' approach? If they can't win on the merits, if they can't defend their policy failures, if they can't convince the voters, then let's go back to the Jim Crow policies the Democrats authored to begin with. This is Jim Crow 2.0: Strip away the power of the voters to make a choice, put an unelected bureaucrat in charge of election laws, and throw out the decisions of 29 million Texans.

I will tell the Presiding Officer this: Democrats don't get to claim they are defending democracy when they are literally taking away the rights of democratically elected legislatures. That is many things, but it ain't democracy. One unelected bureaucrat overruling 29 million Texans is not democracy; it is a power grab.

But I told you this was a power grab on top of a power grab with a twist. The second power grab is, how are they going to try to pass the ``Corrupt Politicians Act''? They are going to do it by nuking the filibuster.

The rules of the Senate written in that book that sits on the dais in front of you say that to proceed to legislation takes 60 votes in this Senate. It takes 60 percent of the Senators. Those are the Senate rules. They are black and white. They are clear. If you don't like the Senate rules, there is a way to change that. You can amend the Senate rules. It takes 67 votes to amend the Senate rules.

A number of us have proposed amending the Senate rules. I myself have repeatedly gone to Democrats saying I would be happy to work with Democrats on proposals to amend the Senate rules to allow Senators on both sides to offer more amendments. Democrats haven't been willing to do so. Instead, what Democrats intend to do--what they want to do, what President Biden is urging them to do--is to break the Senate rules, to change the Senate rules. It is called nuking the filibuster.

If their plan is successful, Senator Schumer will stand up and seek a ruling from the Chair as to whether it takes 60 votes or 50 votes to proceed to legislation.

The Chair will say--if the Chair is following the rules--it takes 60 votes. And then Senator Schumer will move to reconsider the ruling of the Chair and overrule the ruling of the Chair and say: Even though the words on the page say 60 votes, from now on it is 50. It is another brazen power grab.

There may be some folks at home who are a little cynical of the partisan time we find ourselves in, who are skeptical of claims, perhaps, made by both sides. But maybe you are a Democrat at home. And I am a Republican. I am a conservative Republican. You might be saying: Do you know what? If it is Cruz saying it, I am a Democrat; I don't believe him.

I understand this. This is a very partisan time. There are a lot of disagreements. So if you are a Democrat at home and you are inclined not to believe what I say, I am going to suggest, perhaps, some people you can believe.

I told you it was a double power grab with a twist. I want to point to you the words of President Joe Biden. If you are not inclined to believe a Republican, maybe you will believe Joe Biden. Here is what Joe Biden said in 2019. This is not 1964. This is not 1954--2019, a couple of years ago. ``Ending the filibuster is a very dangerous move.''

If you are at home and don't believe Republicans, do you believe Joe Biden? Was he lying when he said ``Ending the filibuster is a very dangerous move'' or was he telling the truth? Because that is what Joe Biden said just a couple of years ago.

Now, maybe you say: Well, he was on a campaign. People say things. You can't hold him to fault for saying that. That is not fair.

OK, all right, so now you don't believe me, and you don't believe Joe Biden. But let's see if we can find someone else. How about someone who serves in this Chamber right now? How about someone who is the Senate majority leader right now? How about Senator Chuck Schumer?

If you haven't actually watched this speech, I would encourage you to go pull out your phone and Google it. You can find it really easily. Senator Chuck Schumer, in 2005, gave a speech. I am going read to you verbatim what he said. He said: ``They want, because they can't get their way . . . to change the rules midstream.''

What would be the effect of that? You change the rules midstream. You nuke the filibuster. What would be the effect of that? According to Chuck Schumer, the effect of that is ``to wash away 200 years of history.'' That is what Schumer says is the effect. ``Washing away 200 years of history''--that sound serious.

Anything else?

``They want to make this country into a banana republic, where if you don't get your way, you change the rules''--``wash away 200 years of history . . . make this country into a banana republic.''

That is pretty serious stuff. That ought to concern us. But at least that is the worst it gets, right? Well, actually, no. Schumer continued: ``It'll be doomsday for democracy if we do.''

There are reporters teeming the U.S. Capitol. Any reporter who wants to be something other than a partisan shill and mouthpiece for the Democrats ought to ask every single Democrat: Senator so-and-so, do you agree with Chuck Schumer that ending the filibuster will turn our Nation into a banana republic? Do you agree, Senator so-and-so, that ending the filibuster would be doomsday for democracy?

And, by the way, if there are any reporters left who actually have journalistic ethics, you shouldn't just ask Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Right now, they are the lone Democrats with the gumption to stand up for democracy. But you ought to ask all 50 of them, every single one of the Democrats: Do you agree with Chuck Schumer that ending the filibuster is doomsday for democracy? And if not, why? Is it just that your team is the one that can't get their way? Now it is your side that wants to change the rules midstream. Now it is your side that, if you don't get your way, you change the rules.

Was Joe Biden lying in 2019? Was Senator Schumer lying in 2005? I don't know. You ought to ask them. A double power grab with a twist: Jim Crow 2.0, seizing Federal elections, striking down the laws adopted by democratic legislatures, putting an unelected radical leftist bureaucrat in charge of elections with more power--this one leftist bureaucrat--than all 29 million people in the State of Texas, doing so by breaking the Senate rules to change the rules. And the twist is with a dose of hypocrisy--unusual even for this place.

Look, if a Senator serves long enough, there will be times when they may vote a little bit this way or a little bit that way. There are lots of Senators that have had tensions with prior positions. I cannot think of another time when a Senator has voted for something that he has called ``doomsday for democracy.'' That is not just a little hypocritical. And, by the way, all the Democrats agreed with him. They were all standing shoulder to shoulder.

In 2005, when Senator Schumer said this, he was either lying or telling the truth. If he was lying, I guess you should ask him why he was lying. If he was telling the truth, I guess you should ask 48 Democrats who don't care why they are willing to vote for doomsday for democracy.

If you want to understand the dangers of this double power grab with a twist, look no further than the vicious, partisan, divisive, hateful speech President Biden gave, insulting half this country; oddly enough, blaming Republicans for the sins of his own party--the Democratic Party--who wrote Jim Crow and founded the KKK.

All of us were sitting outside the Capitol when President Biden gave his inauguration speech, when he talked about unity, when he talked about healing. Do you want to see the vicious partisanship that ending the filibuster will produce? You saw it. A double power grab, with a twist of hypocrisy.

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