And securing the blefg of liberty blessings of liberty for all americans has taken a long and bumpy road and we still have a lot further to go. It starts with that one step. But at this moment the country and the world are demanding we pick up the stride. Lets follow iowas lead. Lets come together and take meaningful action. And to be clear, the passage of a single bill is not going to suddenly reverse centuries of injustice. Passing laws are a simple part. If we really want to change behavior, we need to commit ourselves to changing our hear hearts. The best way that we can personally commemorate the life of george floyd and the many others before him who lost their lives or suffered injustice is to open our own hearts. Chaplain black summed up the solution best when he quoted to me mark 12 31. Love your neighbor as yourself. Its both that simple and that challenging. So im asking all of us in this body to be more like iowa. Lets find a solution. Lets take that first step and begin our journey together. Thank you, mr. President. Ill yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call a senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from missouri. Mr. Blunt mr. President , are we in a quorum call . I move we suspend the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Blunt mr. President , when i heard your comments earlier today and i couldnt have agreed more the importance of us dealing with the issues that were on the floor today that we failed to deal with. I heard our good friend senator scotts response to the way his hard work was looked at and frankly ignored. When the congress stops resembling an honest and open discussion of the issues, i think it gives us a lot to be concerned about. The solution should be the goal. When mechanics of congress when members of congress are more interested in a bill that they believe to be perfect rather than seriously engage in debate, it raises a lot of concerns about how we protect liberty and how we do our constitutional duty. Ive been in the congress for a while, mr. President , as some of my friends are more than eager to point out and i never voted for a perfect bill ever. Ive introduced a couple of perfect bills, but ive never voted for a perfect bill. Ive never voted for a bill that couldnt be improved. Our good friend tim scott said something the other day that struck me as a truism. He said i think most americans are tired of republicans and democrats talking about republicans and democrats. Most americans, as senator scotts point was made, want us to solve problems. They want us to come up not with the best answer possible. They want us to come up with the best possible answer. And whats the difference in the best answer possible and the best possible answer . The difference is figuring out when youve gotten done as much as you can get done and you decide that in this process you want to accept that and come back at a later time and see if you can do a little better. They dont want us to reject a promising solution just because someone from the other party said it first. They dont want us to reject a promising solution just because it doesnt solve everything. Nothing around here happens as fast as wed like it to. Debate, discussion, compromise all take time. Remember, the constitution was put together by people who didnt trust government and they didnt want to make it easy for government to do things, and they didnt. One of the great successes of all time was the success of making it hard for our government to do things. Its hard to explain in other countries where they have parliamentary systems where if the leader doesnt get what the leader wants, the government collapses. Thats not the way this government is designed at all. Its designed to take some time, but you have to be willing to take the time. Its designed to reach compromise but you have to be willing to reach compromise. We think our job should be to, again, come up with the best solution we can come up with and try to do the job that were sent here to do. Try not to wait and say, well, were too close to election. Apparently were too close to election all the time now. Never want to griff away anything give away anything that could be a political issue because its better maybe in some minds not to solve it than it is to solve it. Todays disappointing vote doesnt have to be final. The majority leader changed his vote at the very end. It was 5654. Three democrats and all of the republicans wanting to move forward, but it takes 60 votes here to move forward. And by the way, mr. President , it also takes 60 votes to get off the bill to have a vote. There was nothing to be lost by seeing if we couldnt make senator scotts bill better. In fact, i understand from his speech earlier he agreed to 20 amendments that had the possibility to do that. And thats what were supposed to do. Were here to vote. Were here to make decisions. Were here to move forward or to decide we dont want to move forward. There are times when a decision is we dont want to solve, this is not the right solution to this problem. That was not what we were dealing with today. Our colleagues in the house planned their own legislation. There was that moment of hope when the speaker of the house said she looked forward to taking their product, their bill to conference. Well, you only get to take a bill to conference if theres a conference. And you only get to take a bill to conference if we pass a bill and the house passes a bill. By the way, if theyre exactly the same bill, theres no reason to go to conference. That bill goes to the president. We pass a bill. The house passes a bill. We go to conference and then we come back and we were unwilling, 44 of our colleagues were unwilling to go through that process. You know, you get on a bill like this you get a lot of votes. You get to vote to go to the debate. You get to vote to go to the vote. You get to vote to pass the senate bill. Its been actually a while since i heard somebody say what used to be said often, im voting for this bill. I dont think its where it should be yet, but i look forward to voting for a Better Process coming out of conferen conference. You used to hear that all the time. Im voting for this bill so we can get to conference, and in Conference Im going to do everything i can to work to make it better. Thats how the process works. This take it or leave it, nobody shows up, our friends on the house show up one day to vote on a bill that god knows who decided what would be in that bill, and thats the bill that we either accept or reject, what a foolish way to do business. What an unsatisfactory way to fail to debate the issues that people sent us here to decide on. But again the house will pass a bill this week. And unless we reconsider this decision, that will be the end of it. That will be the end of it. The house has passed a bill. Were not going to take the house bill up. Theres no senate product to go to conference. Thats the end of it. It is an issue that we need to find a solution to. It was an issue we needed to find a solution to after what happened in st. Louis in 2014. Its an issue we needed to find a solution to the dates seem to keep getting closer to where this year three things happened in a row, maybe more than three that shouldnt have happened. And things have happened since those three things that shouldnt have happened. We need to lead on this issue. We need to find a way to make a successful conclusion to the best we can do. And the best we can do today doesnt mean thats the best we can ever do. It just means when you have something that youre agreeing with it this isnt even a bill where senator scotts bill, i didnt hear democrats say i agree with 80 of whats in the bill. Theyre more likely to say 80 of what i want for do is in the bill. Take 80 of what you want to do to conference. Hope it comes back with 90 of what you want to do or 96 of what you want to do, but if you dont trust the process, the process cannot produce a result. People are tired of us failing to do our job. We need to vote. We need to have amendments. We need to have bills on the floor on issues like this that the American People are in the streets of america saying solve this problem. You cant solve this problem by turning your back on it. You cant solve this problem by saying if i dont get this exactly the way i want it, id rather not have anything. Ill tell you what that gets you. That gets you nothing. In a democracy that does not work. If youre getting your way all the time, at home, at church, at school, at work, in the congress, there is something wrong with you. There is something wrong with you. Nobody gets their way all the time. Compromise is the essence of democracy. But youve got to have youve got to be willing to go to the place where compromise happens. On this bill that would have been a conference to see if we cant come closer to a bill that everybody believes is the best we can do. I think senator scott did a great job with his bill. I think senator scott thinks his bill could be better. But his bill is not the house bill, and the house bill is not going to be the final bill either. What a mistake, mr. President , to walk away from the chance to solve a problem. A senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from oklahoma. Mr. Lankford we just finished up a vote on the senate floor where we fell four votes short of opening debate on a bill to deal with Police Reform. Four votes short. We are four votes short of opening debate to discussing every to discussing. Every single republican voted for this and a handful of democrats, but the vast majority of democrats actually said no, we dont want to debate this bill. We will only debate the pelosi bill when it comes out of the house. Well, thats absurd. That didnt happen, i can assure you, when Speaker Boehner was the leader of the house that the senate said i tell you what, were going to wait and see whatever Speaker Boehner sends over to harry reid and harry reid would say oh, yes, please, well take up whatever the boehner bill is. That was never done, and they know that. Its such an odd an odd, peculiar season in our country politically and a painful season in our country culturally and practically. Our hope was to be able to have a real debate on a real bill. I was part of the team in writing this bill. This bill was a genuine push to be able to reform how we do police work and to increase accountability and transparency across the country. The bill that we just needed four democrats to join, just four democrats to join to be able to open up for debate would have banned choke holds across the country. It would have required it would have required the reporting of all serious Bodily Injury or death in Police Custody from everywhere in the country to start tracking all of this. It would have gathered information on noknock warrants all around the country, to start tracking this information to see if they are being abused. It would have put more body cameras on the streets. This bill that we just needed four democrats to join us on, just four, would have put 150 million more in bodyworn cameras all over the street and would have just put those body cameras on the street, it would have also put new requirements to be able to make sure they stay on, which has been an issue. This bill that we just needed four democrats to join us just so we could debate it, discuss it and amend it would have had a whole new system tracking complaints, discipline actions, would have pulled together records for Law Enforcement officers to make sure that they would have had those records, their commendations and their discipline travel to the next department with them, so before an officer leaves one department and goes to the next, all the records are made available to the next department so that we dont have a bad apple moving department to department. This bill that we just needed four democrats to be able to join on with us, any four, just so we could even open it up and debate it and amend it, would have changed a system on a duty to intervene. Putting new obligations, new training, new requirements on an officer thats watching another officer do something they know is wrong to be able to intervene in that process and to be able to stop it. The National Commission to be able to pull folks together to get the best ideas from around the country, to be able to gather best practices that have happened. There is also a new piece thats in this. Its not in the pelosi bill. Its only in this bill, that deals with giving a false report if youre a Police Officer. Because at times well have a Police Officer, there is serious Bodily Injury or death, and their written record doesnt match the reality of what really happened. Its not just a misremember. They intentionally intend to make a false report. This bill that we wanted to just debate today would have allowed us to be able to add additional penalties on that. To be able to make sure someone receives the due penalty if they are trying to lie on forms. This bill would have dealt with mental health. This bill would have dealt with deescalation training. This bill was designed to be able to help get additional training. This bill has a section in it using the museum of African American history to design a curriculum that we could put out to every Department Around the country in the history of race and Law Enforcement. Its modeled after what was done with the Holocaust Museum to deal with antisemitism. Thats what this bill was designed to do. We just needed four democrats to join us. But instead, they dug in, did press releases, and said that bill is terrible, its awful, it has no teeth in it. That bill is unsalvageable. I would ask any american listening to me and anyone in this room, are there one of those ideas that you dont like . Then the conversation was well, were not going to have an open enough process. So senator scott, who is our point negotiator in this, sat down with democratic leadership and said how about 20 amendments. 20 amendments on this bill. So if you want to bring something up to be able to amend it, change it, great. They said no. Because their desire is only Speaker Pelosis bill or nothing. I think thats exceptionally sad because we have been through this journey so many times where we will see a black man be killed and well all watch the footage, and the whole country rises up and Congress Starts debating and then it stops, and it stops because of silly stuff like this. Where people dig in and say if you dont do it entirely our way, then were not going to do it at all, because its not about solving the problem, its just about prolonging a problem until you can make it a political issue when families out there want this solved. All of those things i listed are all out there. Now, there is two things that i have heard to say were not going to take up your bill, were not going to debate it, were not going to discuss it, were not going to even block it from coming to the floor, which is what happened today. The two issues that i have heard is, you know what . I really want us to go to committee. I want a committee to look at this, take some time, go through this. Thats a fascinating argument. And i wish it was true. Because two weeks ago, the discussion was we need to get on this as quickly as possible until we actually put out a legitimate bill, and then my democratic colleagues said well, there is a problem with how youre putting it out. Were going to debate it on the floor. I would rather debate it in committee and then have the floor just bring it but not debate it on the floor. I dont want to debate it out here. Lets debate it over there. No one is buying that argument, no ones buying that. If you can put 20 amendments on this, thats what would happen in the committee, lets bring it, lets talk about it. Everyone sees what that is. Shuffling bills off to committee is about delaying and stalling and lets delay this out, because they know, okay, we wont get it this week, they will delay it out, and its after the 4th of july, and when you come back from the 4th of july, we have the coronavirus bills they know, we have the Appropriations Bills that they know. Its like okay, it wont happen there. Then there is the august gap. Then i will move to september. What they are trying to do is try to get it closer and closer to the election and make it a big election issue about it and say those crazy republicans wont resolve this. Get it close to the election and make it an election issue. Hello. Why dont we just solve this instead of dragging the country through something we all know key ways to be able to solve. So our two issues that we know of, one is a purely political issue, stall, delay, try to get us closer to the election and then divide the country. The second one deals with an issue on whether Police Officers should not only face criminal liability, they should face civil liability as well. And you hear this get kicked around all the time in all kinds of different terms. Speaker pelosis bill says not only put that Police Officer in prison, which they deserve, they murder someone commit a crime, a Police Officer is as liable under the law. We fix that. Speaker pelosis bill says not only put them in prison, but also civilly take away their home and their car and their pension away from their family, make sure we leave them destitute and their family destitute as well as putting them in prison. Thats what their bill is all about. And its the reason so many Police Officers are so frustrated and furious with the bill they adamantly want to put on the floor because they are saying if they did something wrong, they should face the consequences for it. But dont punish their family. Speaker pelosis bill says no, the Police Officer should be imprisoned and their families should have their home taken away from them and their Police Pension taken away from them and everything else. You know what we have talked about . We have talked about a Police Officer facing criminal penalties, as they do now and as they should. If there is a civil case, why dont we bring it against the department that didnt train their officer, that didnt supervise that officer . Instead of attacking an officers family,