Dick Durbin Blasts Senator Mitch McConnell For Election Security Legislation
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[Dick Durbin Blasts Senator Mitch McConnell For Election Security Legislation]
[Richard Joseph Durbin:] Source: LYBIO.net
Thank you, Madam President. I want to thank the leader, Senator Schumer, from New York for his introduction of the remarks I’m about to make, but before I do, let me preface it by saying I couldn’t agree with him more.
When you take a look at this empty Senate Chamber and realize we are in session this week, with the possibility of bringing important legislation to the floor, you have to ask the obvious question – where is everybody?
Why aren’t we acting like a Senate?
Why are we meeting and having speeches instead of debate on important legislation?
And what could be more important than the security of an election?
We have a lot of young people across America, we say to them register to vote. Your vote makes a difference. You get to choose the leaders for this country’s future. Be sure and vote.
But we’ve got to be honest with them.
Your vote is under attack, first by apathy, people don’t register and they don’t vote, but second by outside foreign influence and forces.
We know what happened four years ago in the Presidential election. The Russians tried to invade the United States electoral process and change it.
I know that first hand because it happened first in the state of Illinois.
It turns out someone put together a computer program that had a little opening in it, a little hole, and that’s all they needed. Sitting out in Moscow, these folks in front of computers are searching day in and day out searching for ways to get in the voter list in Illinois. And they were successful.
Successful in invading the voters list – the official records of our State on the people who are eligible to vote.
They could have done some mischievous things. They could have disrupted our election. Thank goodness they didn’t. But it was as going through and changing the addresses -one digit in the address of every registered voter, so that when that voter came to vote, the I.D. Card or information given to the judge at the election place wouldn’t match up in terms of your address with the official record, and that meant that you would vote with a provisional ballot and those ballots would stack up with the thousands of people who could have been victimized by the Russians in my state of Illinois.
We said it very publicly, we were the first state to say publicly, the Russians have done this to us.
We didn’t see any changes in the voter file.
We knew they had the capacity and ability to do it, but they didn’t.
We know every since they have been attacking the electoral process.
Why didn’t we hear about it as much in the most recent election in 2018, well specifically because we were at a circumstance where we were fighting them. Our intelligence agencies were fighting them. Our intelligence agencies were fighting them.
So this is a valid issue, an important issue, and it’s one that I hope leader Schumer made clear to those who are listening to this debate.
Why won’t Senator – why won’t Senator Mitch McConnell bring to the floor of the United States Senate elections security legislation – bipartisan legislation that will in the course of passing it make us safer when it come to our electoral processes?
What is it?
This kind of bromance between the President and Valdimir Putin, I don’t understand it, but now it appears to be another party on the scene – Senator McConnell is joining in this effort, keep our hands off of Russia, don’t confront Russia.
I don’t understand why the Senator from Kentucky is taking that position.
He should be pushing forward on a bipartisan basis to protect our election security.
Now, I see my friend and colleague, Republican colleague from Utah is here, and I know the purpose of his attendance, but I’m about to make a statement about T.P.S. Status for Venezuelans in the United States.
I’ll preface it briefly, make my request and allow the senator from Utah, if he doesn’t want to stay to respond, and then I will continue.
Last year I went to Venezuela. It was my first time. And I met with President [Nick] [Nicolás], and I said to him – if you have the election that you plan to have, it will not be credible and around the world you will find the United States and many other Nations will reject the outcome.
You’ve got to open up the process – stop putting your political opponents in jail.
Have a real election, a free election.
Venezuela needs it not just from a Constitutional viewpoint but your economy is in shambles, and if you want the world to join you in rebuilding the Venezuelan economy, you have to be the credible leader and you can’t be if you go through this election as planned.
That was my speech. It didn’t work.
He had the election as he had planned it. He made sure that his opponents were under house arrest or in jail.
He fixed the vote and ending up declaring himself a winner and no one accepted it.
And so across the world you find this resistance to his leadership.
There are some 70,000 people from Venezuela in the United States. They are here on visitors’ Visas, work Visas, student Visas, similar capacities. They are being asked now to return to Venezuela.
[Richard Joseph Durbin:] Source: LYBIO.net
But look – listen to the circumstances.
In Venezuela we know that it’s not safe for Americans to visit.
Senator Menendez has spoken on this issue. He’s joining me in this effort today.
We are warning Americans, it is unsafe to visit Venezuela, but we’re telling the Venezuelans who are in the United States they have to go back.
What we’re asking for is temporary protected status for these Venezuelans to be able to stay in the United States during the dependency of this contest that’s going on about the future of that nation. People are literally starving to death in Venezuela. People are literally starving to death in Venezuela. They have no medicine.
It’s in the worst possible situation.
How can we, in good conscience, say to these Venezuelans who are in the United States, you have to return.
So the purpose of my effort today on the floor is to say that we should discharge from the judiciary committee legislation that allows these Venezuelans to stay here while we have declared it so dangerous in their home country.
It is a rational and thoughtful thing to do.
Though, sadly, the Trump Administration has sent me a letter saying they don’t approve of it.
[Richard Joseph Durbin:] Source: LYBIO.net
It’s time for Congress to act. It’s time for the Senate to act. And I’m going to make my formal motion at this point because Senator Lee has come to the floor.
Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 549, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration, further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
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Dick Durbin Blasts Senator Mitch McConnell For Election Security Legislation. Why won’t Senator Mitch McConnell bring to the floor of the United States Senate elections security legislation – bipartisan legislation that will in the course of passing it make us safer when it come to our electoral processes? Complete Full Transcript, Dialogue, Remarks, Saying, Quotes, Words And Text.