mattered more than the people in power.
That is the ideal that this Nation was founded upon. That is why a few patriots threw some tea in Boston Harbor, why Washington crossed the Delaware, why suffragists were arrested a century ago, and why my friend John Lewis crossed that bridge in Selma in 1965. It is why millions spent a Tuesday in November standing in line, braving a pandemic to make their voices heard.
Listen, this administration has always had an adversarial relationship with the truth. Trump always cries conspiracy, always foments chaos whenever something doesn’t go his way. But today, we here in this Chamber have the opportunity to prove that here in this country, truth matters, that right matters, that the will of the people matters more than the whims of any single powerful individual.
I have no tea to throw in Boston Harbor tonight, and I regret that I have no rucksack to pack for my country, no Black Hawk to pilot, nor am I asking for any grand gesture from my Republican colleagues. All I am asking of you is to reflect on the oaths that you have sworn, on the damage done to our Union today, and on the sacrifices made by those who have given so much to this Nation, from the servicemembers at Arizona’s Fort Huachuca and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma to the marchers who bent America’s moral arc a little bit more toward justice with every single step that they took, every bridge that they crossed.
Then ask yourself whether the democracy they were willing to bleed for, the country that each of us in this Chamber has sworn to defend, is worth damaging in order to protect the porcelain ego of a man who treats the Constitution as if it were little more than a yellowing piece of paper.
I think we all know the right answer.
The Vice President. The majority leader.
Mr. McConnell. Mr. President, I yield up to 5 minutes to the Senator from Kentucky, Senator Paul.
The Vice President. The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. Paul. I wrote a speech for today. I was planning to say that I fear the chaos of establishing a precedent that Congress can overturn elections. Boy, was I right. Chaos, anarchy—the violence today was wrong and un-American.
The vote we are about to cast is incredibly important. Now more than ever, the question is, Should Congress override the certified results from the States and nullify the States’ rights to conduct elections?
The vote today is not a protest; the vote today is literally to overturn elections. We have been told that this is a protest, that this is about an electoral commission. No, it is not. It is about whether to seat the electors certified by a State. It is not about an electoral commission. It is not about a protest. You can go outside if you want to protest. This is about overturning a State-certified election.
If you vote to overturn these elections, wouldn’t it be the opposite of States’ rights Republicans have always advocated for?
This would doom the electoral college forever. It was never intended by our Founders that Congress have the power to overturn State-certified elections. My oath to the Constitution doesn’t allow me to disobey the law. I can’t vote to overturn the verdict of States. Such a vote would be to overturn everything held dear by those of us who support the rights of States in this great system of federalism that was bequeathed to us by our Founders.
The electoral college was created to devolve the power of selecting Presidential electors to the States. The electoral college is, without question, an inseparable friend to those who believe that every American across our vast country deserves to be heard.
If Congress were given the power to overturn the States’ elections, what terrible chaos would ensue every 4 years. Imagine the furor against the electoral college if Congress becomes a forum to overturn States’ electoral college slates.
It is one thing to be angry. It is another to focus one’s anger in constructive ways. That hasn’t happened today, to say the least.
We simply cannot destroy the Constitution, our laws, and the electoral college in the process.
I hope, as the Nation’s anger cools, we can channel that energy into essential electoral reforms at the State level. America is admired around the world for our free elections. We must—we absolutely must fix this mess and restore confidence and integrity to our elections. We must.
The Vice President. The Democratic leader.
Mr. Schumer. The Senator from Virginia, Senator Warner.
The Vice President. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. Warner. Mr. President, I think like most of us, I am still pretty reeling from what happened today. What I was going to talk about was the work I am most proud of since I have been here, with my good friend Richard Burr and all the members of the Intelligence Committee, about a multiyear report we did into foreign interference in our elections. Probably our top recommendation of that five-volume, bipartisan report was that any official or candidate should use restraint and caution when questioning results of our elections because when you do so, you often carry out the goals of our foreign adversaries. Use caution because, whether knowingly or unknowingly and whether that adversary is in Russia or China or Iran, their goals are pretty simple: They want to make it appear to Americans, to folks around the world, and to their own people that there is nothing special about American democracy.
I was going to try in a feeble way, maybe, to reach some of the rhetorical heights of Ben Sasse. I knew I couldn’t do that, so instead—I know I am violating rules. Today is the day for violating rules. This is a photo that appears today in one of the most prominent German newspapers. You don’t need to draw it up. You can draw up photos from any newspaper or any television feed anywhere across the world.
And what is this photo of? It is of thugs—thugs—in the Halls of this Capitol, diminishing everything we say we believe in, in this democracy.
When you look at those images, realize that those images are priceless for our adversaries. I am willing, tonight, in an overwhelming way, to take a small step, in a bipartisan way, to start restoring that trust of our people and, hopefully, the billions of people around the world who believe in that notion of American democracy. Remember, these images are still there.
I yield the floor.
The Vice President. The majority leader.
Mr. McConnell. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Hawley.
The Vice President. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. Hawley. Mr. President, I want to begin this evening by saying thank you to the men and women of the Capitol Police, the National Guardsmen, the Metropolitan Police, and others who came to this Capitol and put their lives on the line to protect everybody here who was working inside. I want to thank law enforcement all across this country—in my home State of Missouri and everywhere else—who do that day in and day out.
I just want to acknowledge that, when it comes to violence, it was a terrible year in America this last year. We have seen a lot of violence against law enforcement, and today, we saw it here in the Capitol of the United States. In this country, in the United States of America, we cannot say emphatically enough: Violence is not how you achieve change. Violence is not how you achieve something better.
Our Constitution was built and put into place so that there would be, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, no appeal from ballots to bullets, which is what we saw, unfortunately, attempted tonight. There is no place for that in the United States of America, and that is why I submit to my colleagues that what we are doing here tonight is, actually, very important because, for those who have concerns about the integrity of our elections and for those who have concerns about what happened in November, this is the appropriate means. This is the lawful place where those objections and concerns should be heard. This is the forum that the law provides for—that our laws provide for—for those concerns to be registered, not through violence—not by appealing from ballots to bullets—but here, in this lawful process.
