-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, throughout this Congress, I have been more than a little puzzled about the House's refusal to advance commonsense bills that pass the Senate with unanimous support. I know my Senate colleagues have shared their concerns as we have watched bipartisan bills sit in House purgatory with no explanation as to what the reasons for the holdup are.

We are talking about bills that help prevent child sexual abuse, support disaster relief, cut redtape, and increase payments to the child support program. These are hardly controversial matters. All 100 Members of the Senate supported these bipartisan bills and countless others, but they are still collecting dust on the House calendar.

With the end of the 117th Congress less than a month away, it looks like the logjam may finally begin to break. Last week, the House finally passed the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Reauthorization Act that I authored with Senator Klobuchar. This bill will continue critical grants for mental health courts, crisis intervention teams, and other programs to promote public safety, improve mental health outcomes, and reduce recidivism. The bill passed the Senate unanimously in June, and while I am disappointed that it took so long for the House to act, I am glad it finally did with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Last week, the House also passed legislation to rename the post office in Arlington, TX, not exactly a monumental piece of legislation. But the important part of it was that it honored our friend and former colleague Congressman Ron Wright. This legislation passed the Senate with unanimous support back in May, and over the last 6 months, it has gotten caught up in partisan jockeying in the House. I am glad the House finally advanced this bill so that we can honor the incredible life and legacy of Congressman Wright.

As I said, the logjam looks like it is beginning to break, but we still have a way to go.

Despite advancing these two overwhelmingly bipartisan bills, the House still refuses to pass another incredible bill, the Residential Substance Use Disorder Treatment Act. Senator Whitehouse and I introduced this bipartisan bill to help incarcerated individuals struggling with drug abuse.

There is a well-established link between drug abuse and crime. And in order for individuals who have been incarcerated to have the best shot at leading healthy and productive lives, they need to break the cycle of addiction.

The Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program--or RSAT, as it is sometimes called--provides incarcerated individuals with access to treatment for substance use disorders. The treatment is coupled with programs to prepare these men and women for reentry and to provide community-based treatment once they are released.

Our bill updates the program and expands access to treatment in jails and prisons around the country so that we can reduce recidivism and build safer, healthier communities. More than two dozen organizations have endorsed this bill, including law enforcement, criminal justice, and behavioral health groups.

As I indicated, it passed the Senate with unanimous support last year, but for some unknown reason, the House has refused to take it up so far. I can only hope that this will change in the waning days of the 117th Congress.

As bad as it is to block any of these commonsense, bipartisan bills, one of the most confounding is a bill to improve the way police respond to an individual experiencing a mental health crisis. This has been a major issue, something we have led on here in the Congress.

Why the House refuses to act now is beyond me, but the American people have witnessed one disturbing incident after another in which a seemingly benign encounter with police turned deadly. These have included everything from routine traffic stops to encounters with individuals experiencing a severe mental health meltdown.

We all agree that deadly force should be a last resort. Unfortunately, police officers don't always have the training and the resources they need to defuse potentially dangerous situations. That is why this training and these grants are so important, to deescalate the confrontation.

As we all know, our communities ask a lot of our law enforcement officers. In addition to fighting crimes, they are often the first to respond to domestic disputes, drug overdoses, and, yes, mental health crises. They are expected to function as peace officers, social workers, mental health professionals, and crisis response experts of all stripes.

We have tried to lessen the burden on police through bills like the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Reauthorization Act, but those bills alone are not enough. Law enforcement has asked Congress for more support to improve deescalation training, and we need to deliver.

That is exactly why I worked with Senator Whitehouse, the Democratic Senator from Rhode Island, to update and reintroduce the Law Enforcement De-Escalation Training Act. This legislation will ensure that all of our officers have the skills they need to defuse a potentially dangerous situation that could endanger them or perhaps the individual experiencing the crisis.

Again, use of force should come into play only when absolutely necessary, and this legislation will provide law enforcement with the ready knowledge of what alternatives exist. It will help train police in deescalation tactics, the most effective and safest ways to interact with people experiencing mental health or suicide crises, and how to work as part of a crisis intervention team.

Law enforcement has specifically requested this training, and I am not willing to second-guess them when they say these are important techniques to keep their officers and the general public safe. They are certainly not ``soft-on-crime'' policies.

This bill has a list of endorsements that is as long as it is diverse. Law enforcement groups, including the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of Police Organizations, and the National Sheriffs' Association have all endorsed this bill. So did the Major County Sheriffs of America, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, and the National Criminal Justice Association.

This legislation also has the support of major mental health groups, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the American Psychological Association, and the Meadows Health Policy Institute.

It received the endorsement of folks on the conservative end of the spectrum, such as the American Conservative Union, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Right on Crime.

It has the support of faith-based groups, including Prison Fellowship, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the Catholic Prison Ministry Coalition.

It has also received the support of the National Association of Counties, which represents local leaders throughout the country.

Despite this long list of advocates and stakeholders who support this bill and the fact that the Senate passed it unanimously, the House, for some unknown reason, blocked it this last week. While it received majority support, it failed to clear the two-thirds threshold necessary under the House suspension calendar.

Many of the people who voted against this bill are the same ones who supported deescalation training grants multiple times in previous years. They are even on record promoting their support in the media.

As recently as 2 months ago, grants for deescalation training were uncontroversial. It is tough to understand what has changed and why anyone would vote against this bill now.

It provides the funding and the training that law enforcement desperately needs and that will help make encounters between law enforcement and people experiencing a mental health crisis much safer for all concerned. It will help build public confidence and trust in our law enforcement agencies, and, like I said, it has the support of a full range of stakeholders.

There is no ideological or political reason why people would not support this bill, as Members of the Senate and Members of the Congress across the political spectrum have seen the wisdom of passing this legislation. But I must say that anyone who considers themselves ``pro- police'' or pro-law enforcement should be pro this legislation.

I am disappointed, as I said, that the House blocked this bill from heading to the President's desk last week, and I am hopeful that Speaker Pelosi and Leader Hoyer will schedule another vote at a simple majority threshold soon.

I look forward to that second vote because, as we know, House Republicans have been very clear about their support for America's police officers.

Earlier this year, they rolled out their ``Commitment to America'' framework, which included a commitment to build a nation that is safe. Part of that commitment is to ``oppose all efforts to defund the police.'' I stand by that commitment 100 percent, and no one who supports the Commitment to America should waiver in their support of law enforcement, including this particular piece of legislation.

In order for every American to not only be safe but to feel safe, we need to enact long overdue reforms to ensure police are more responsibly serving our communities, and that is that they have the training and tools they need in order to do their dangerous and difficult job.

The Law Enforcement De-Escalation Training Act will go a long way to give those officers the funding and training that they have requested and that they need in order to do their jobs better.

Just as House Republicans have promised, we must give America's brave law enforcement officers the resources they need in order to protect and serve our communities.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source