This view breaks the statement into its steps and names what each one does.
Mr. President, Greeting · 24 wordsreserving the right to object, I appreciate the insight offered by my friend and colleague, the distinguished senior Senator of the State of California.Greeting Positioning · 17 wordsHe is someone I enjoy working with on multiple committees. He is a brilliant scholar and statesman, PositioningThanks · 6 wordsand I appreciate his arguments today.Thanks Procedure · 13 wordsNow, I want to point out what we didn’t hear in his argument.Procedure Claims · 109 wordsAt no point do we have any effort to address the merits of this legislation, the merits of voter ID laws. Instead, what we have heard from Senate Democrats so far this year on this issue has been: This isn’t necessary. We don’t need it. It is needless as voter fraud doesn’t happen. That has, of course, been proven very much false in recent months.Hidden agency Then they moved on to arguments like: Well, requiring voter ID laws would harm rural Americans or urban Americans. And then one day it is: It will harm older Americans. Another day, it is younger Americans. At times, they called them racist or sexist, Reasoning · 48 wordswhich is odd because arguing that women are less likely to have and be able to produce a photo ID or that members of this or that race are able to do that doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t comport with our common experience, with our common understanding.Unearned certainty Claims · 49 wordsPeople of all races, people of both sexes, people in rural America and urban America and suburban America and everything in between, they have photo IDs because in this day and age, you have to have photo IDs. That is what they have been arguing so far this year. Positioning · 26 wordsNow, today, what we did hear, most of what we just heard from my friend and colleague, one of the U.S. Senate’s most gifted minds, was: PositioningClaims · 102 wordsWell, it is too late--too late. You can’t change the rules midstream because early voting has already happened. Well, this is convenient after they have argued over and over and over again: We don’t need this and it is wrong and it is racist and it is sexist. Now, the argument has shifted to: Well, it is too late. Sorry. You lose. So they have secured the delay and gotten us now to the point where we are just weeks before the election. Early voting is already commencing in certain parts of the country.1 And now the argument is: Sorry. Too late. The question · 55 wordsSo I would love to find out from my colleague from California, does this mean he would be willing to accept this legislation, to pass it, to pass it today, right now, if only we included a delayed implementation clause such that the effective date would occur at some point after this November’s midterm election?2 The ask · 24 wordsI would love to know that, and I am hoping, at the conclusion of my brief remarks now, that he will tell us that. Procedure · 8 wordsThen he moves on and asks the question: ProcedureClaims · 48 wordsWhat is really going on, having never made any argument against the merits of this legislation. He makes it about time, and then he moves on and tries to attribute ill motives to me, to Senator Husted, to Senate Republicans, and to the Trump administration for supporting this; Positioning · 31 wordsill motives founded on sowing fear, uncertainty, and doubt, creating chaos in the elections, dogs and cats living out in the streets, a scene right out of the Book of Revelation.Positioning Reasoning · 109 wordsThis doesn’t make any sense, especially given that we could remedy that if only he would agree to just a simple delayed implementation measure. And even if we didn’t, what is the worst case scenario if we passed this right now and the House of Representatives passed it tomorrow with an immediate effective date? The worst thing that can happen is that people show up on election day and they are asked to pull out a document that they produce several times a month; in many cases, several times a week; or, in some cases, several times each day every day. It is not that big of a deal; Claims · 51 wordsin fact, our election security depends on it and, frankly, should require it. Finally, then my friend and colleague the distinguished Senator from California tries yet again to distract attention away from this knowing, understanding perhaps, that this is supported by 83-84 percent of all Americans--Democrat, Independent, 3and everything in between. Anecdote · 62 wordsAnd it seems it is almost right out of ``Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,’’ where they are confronting an enemy, and not knowing what else to do, they say: Look, it is the Goodyear Blimp. And while the guy they are arguing with turns to look for the Goodyear Blimp, which is not, in fact, there, they run in the other direction.Anecdote Claims · 58 wordsHe then tries to make it about tariffs and asks that instead of this, we consider and we pass this bill S.4 5390, which I saw for the first time only minutes ago, that has absolutely nothing to do with anything addressed by this legislation I am trying to pass here today, nothing to do with election security. Positioning · 22 wordsFine, let’s talk about tariffs on another occasion, but that is not what we are talking about here. This is a distraction.Positioning Claims · 19 wordsIt is a distraction away from something that the American people expect and demand us to do something about.Unearned certainty Promise · 70 wordsSo for these reasons, I cannot, I will not, I must not agree to those terms that we are just going to set this aside and move on to and pass this tariff bill that has nothing to do with election security. On that basis, I object and hope that my friend and colleague will tell us whether he is willing to agree to this legislation with delayed implementation mechanisms.Off point
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