The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Filibuster (Executive Session)” mentioning Patrick J. Leahy was published in the Senate section on pages S4560-S4561 on June 16.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Filibuster
As America prepares to celebrate Juneteenth 2021, we must also remember that the ``absolute equality,'' promised at that first Juneteenth in 1865, has too often been denied to African Americans.
Just a year after the Civil War ended, Southern States enacted the
``Black Codes,'' State laws meant to preserve White supremacy. In response, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, guaranteeing African Americans due process of law and Black men the right to vote.
Unbowed, Southern States invented Jim Crow laws, creating new hurdles to voting and participation that made it nearly impossible for many African Americans to exercise their voting rights and other basic rights of citizenship.
As the great activist W.E.B. DuBois wrote in his essay ``Black Reconstruction in America,'' ``The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun and moved back down again toward slavery.''
This betrayal of the promise of freedom for African Americans was possible, in part, because of misguided Court decisions by the Supreme Court, especially the infamous 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, which enshrined the concept of ``separate but equal.'' That odious decision stood for more than 50 years as the law of the land, making racial discrimination both legal and enforceable.
The betrayal of equality for African Americans also was abetted by southern segregationist Senators who wielded the filibuster as a weapon for decades to stop civil rights measures in Congress.
I know our Senate minority leader and some of his colleagues on the other side get upset when anyone utters the words ``filibuster'' and
``Jim Crow'' too close together. They insist that the filibuster has nothing to do with race. Well, history, in fact, proves otherwise.
Historian Sarah Binder is a leading expert on the filibuster. According to her analysis, of the 30 measures between 1917 and 1994 that were killed on this Senate floor by the filibuster, ``exactly half addressed [the issue of] civil rights . . . including measures to authorize Federal investigation and prosecution of lynching, [banning] the imposition of poll taxes, and [prohibiting] discrimination on the basis of race and housing.'' That total doesn't count other major civil rights measures, such as the Civil Rights Acts of 1967 and 1964, which passed only after lengthy filibusters by segregationist Senators.
Today, Senator McConnell is vowing to use the filibuster, if necessary, to protect a flood of new State voting laws that are as racially discriminatory as we have seen since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 officially barred Jim Crow from American elections. After record numbers of Americans braved a deadly pandemic to vote in the 2020 elections, Republican-controlled State legislatures are rushing to pass new laws to make it harder--not easier, harder--for millions of Americans to vote, especially people of color.
Supporters of these new voter suppression laws cite the Big Lie as their justification, Donald Trump's dangerous, discredited claim that the 2020 Presidential election was somehow stolen from him. That Big Lie has been rejected by State election officials of both parties, by our Nation's top election security experts, and by every Federal judge it has faced, including several appointed by President Trump himself. Sixty times President Trump went to Federal courts with his Big Lie, and 60 times he lost.
Despite all of that, Senator McConnell and many of our Republican colleagues have vowed to filibuster our measure, known as the For the People Act, which includes provisions to protect voting rights, defend the integrity of elections, prevent billionaires from buying elections, and strengthening ethics.
Their opposition to protecting the right to vote doesn't end there. Senator McConnell has also said he will oppose the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill that Senator Leahy and I are working on in the Senate Judiciary Committee, that would restore and strengthen the protections of the Voting Rights Act.
I will say this. In all fairness to the minority leader, his use of the filibuster is not limited to matters of civil rights and racial justice. Senator McConnell has transformed the filibuster from a rarely used tactic to a weapon of frequent mass obstruction.
When Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, our Nation was teetering on the edge of a second Great Depression, and Senator McConnell said his top priority was to make President Obama ``a one-
term President.'' Not to rescue the economy--no, that wasn't his top priority. Not to help people who had lost their homes or business. Senator McConnell's No. 1 priority was to make President Obama a one-
term President. He would do that by dramatically increasing the use of filibusters in order to deny the new President every possible achievement
Fast-forward to this year. President Biden is sworn in during an epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and sent our economy into deep recession, and Senator McConnell was quoted again saying: ``100 percent of our focus is on stopping this new Administration.'' Not stopping the virus nor the economic devastation we are facing, but stopping the new administration. Again, the weapon of choice for Senator McConnell is the filibuster.
Three weeks ago, 42 Republican Senators stood with Senator McConnell and filibustered a bill to create an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the deadly January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. This independent Commission's mission would have been to examine the attack on the Capitol and the events leading up to it. Fifty-six Senators, a clear majority, supported creation of the January 6 Commission. It wasn't enough. We needed 60 votes. Senator McConnell's filibuster prevailed again.
For those who argue that the filibuster encourages bipartisan cooperation, let me tell you: The January 6 Commission bill was the result of intense bipartisan compromise. Negotiations were worked out by top Republicans and Democrats in the House, and it was filibustered by Senator McConnell regardless.
The Commission would have been more comprehensive and less political than the inquiries into the insurrection being conducted by congressional committees. Like the 9/11 Commission, the January 6 Commission would have subpoena authority to get to the truth.
For a short while, Senator McConnell said he would keep an open mind about whether to support the bill. The night before the House voted to create the Commission, however, former President Donald Trump posted a screed on his blog denouncing the Commission as a ``Democratic Trap.'' That was all Senator McConnell needed to hear. The former President demanded that Republicans reject the Commission and added: ``Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, I hope you're listening.'' Well, it turns out that they were.
The next day--after 35 House Republicans joined Democrats to create this January 6 Commission--Senator McConnell announced that he was going to filibuster it and oppose it. He asked members of his caucus, as a personal favor, to support his filibuster of the January 6 Commission.
This is where the abuse of the filibuster has brought us. We aren't able to break through the partisan gridlock even to investigate the worst attack on the Capitol of the United States of America in more than 200 years. How can anyone believe, after that shameful vote, that protecting the filibuster as it is currently misused is protecting our democracy? Cynical, overuse of the filibuster imperils our democracy. There has got to be a better way.
Contrary to Senate myth, the filibuster is not in our Constitution--
just the opposite. The man who wrote that Constitution knew well how requiring supermajorities for routine bills had doomed the Articles of Confederation. They deliberately rejected a supermajority requirement for common legislation when they wrote the Constitution.
Defenders say the filibuster encourages bipartisan compromise. Look around you. Does anyone really believe for a minute that this is the new golden age of bipartisan compromise in the Senate?
There are proposals to mend the filibuster. We could bring back a talking filibuster. We all remember the movie ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'' where he withered and fell to the floor at his desk carrying on an endless filibuster. It isn't that way any longer. Senators now can start a filibuster with a phone call and head home for the weekend. That is not what the filibuster was designed for. If a Senator feels strongly enough about an issue to grind the Senate to a halt, they should be willing to stand up and speak their mind and stay on the Senate floor.
Some have proposed changing the number of votes needed to end debate, possibly lowering the 60-vote requirement for cloture to 55. That is a precedent that at least is consistent with historical trends, but leaders of both parties need to agree on it.
I am willing to consider any reasonable plan that promotes genuine bipartisan cooperation and ends the tyranny of the minority. What we cannot do is nothing.
After a minority of Senators used the filibuster to prevent--for now--the creation of the January 6 Commission, we all went home for a long Memorial Day weekend. On my flight home and all that weekend, I thought of the young men who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-day, running straight into enemy fire, knowing well that they might die to preserve democracy. And many of them did. Now we see Members of the Senate routinely abusing the filibuster because they are afraid to face an unpleasant vote or an angry insult from Donald Trump. Surely, we are better and braver than this.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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