Bernie Moreno · TranslatePolitics.com

Senate

Resolutions Submitted Today

2026-08-07

“I want us to pass these resolutions quickly without reading them.”

Senate

Commending the Chicago Cubs Baseball Team as It Celebrates Its 150th Anniversary on August 29, 2026

2026-08-07

“I want permission for this resolution to pass without objection or changes. I want the same for the resolution's preamble, with the changes that have been made. I want any motions to change them again to be dismissed.”

Senate

Expanding the Sharing of Information with Respect to Suspected Violations of Intellectual Property Rights in Trade

2026-08-07

“I want to rush this IP bill through without debate. Let's all vote yes quickly.”

Senate

Common Cents Act

2026-08-07

“I want the Senate to pass this amended bill right now. No more delays or chances to change it later.”

“I want the Senate to vote on this bill right now. No more delays.”

Senate

Officer John Barnes and Chief Michael Ansbro Public Safety Officers' Benefit Program Expansion Act of 2026

2026-08-07

“I want this bill to pass. I am using procedure to make that happen.”

Senate

EXECUTIVE CALENDAR (Executive Session)

2026-08-07

“I want the Senate to quickly confirm these military nominees. No debate or delay.”

Senate

Recess

2026-08-07

“I want the Senate to take a break until 8:15 p.m. Let's count this time as if we're still in session.”

“I want the Senate to take a break until 7:30 tonight. The recess time should count towards ending debate.”

Senate

Unanimous Consent Requests (Executive Session)

2026-07-29

“The bill my colleagues proposed already passed the House with bipartisan support. If we pass it here, it can become law quickly. It would ban insider trading and require voter ID. That is what most Americans want. The other bill they talk about is not serious. It has not passed the House. It is just for show. I object to their request. They should stop playing games.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, reserving my right to object, the bill that my colleague from Nebraska, my colleague from Ohio, and my colleague from Utah is proposing is a bill that has already passed the House of Representatives. It has massive bipartisan support. Lots of Democrats voted for that in the House. If we pass it, it can become law. Putting that bill on the floor at 60 is a very low-threshold ask. I think the American people deserve to know what each Member of this Chamber decides to do on banning insider trading and voter ID. The proposal that my colleague from California is putting on the floor is a bill that has neither gotten through any committee where it has been actually read by committee members. It is a bill that has not been presented to the House of Representatives, so they would have to take it up over there. It would, of course, be modified and come back. In other words, it is what I say--it is the DC two-step--or if you want to have a headline that says ``I am for banning insider trading'' knowing nothing will actually happen. Now, maybe you don't think that the bill that my colleague from Nebraska worked diligently on is perfect, but it is a massive step in the right direction. This would get us to 99.9 percent of the way there on banning insider trading. It could happen tomorrow. It could happen tomorrow. And the voter ID law, which virtually all Americans support, could happen tomorrow. So what we are dealing with is one bill that can be signed into law that has been vetted, that has massive bipartisan support, versus a bill that, quite frankly, the person talking about it wasn't even on that committee, is not 100 percent sure what was in that bill, doesn't know the history of the bill. It wasn't a year ago; it was a few months ago. It is a smokescreen, and for that reason I object.

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“You said Republicans are not united on voter ID. That is false. 53 out of 53 Republicans voted for a voter ID bill. That is 100 percent. Democrats all voted against it. Democrats don't want voter ID. I object to your request. We could pass my bills on insider trading and voter ID. But you don't want to. You object. You don't do what people want.”

Official Congressional Record

I am objecting. Sorry. Well, let me--just continuing. So let's talk about voter ID really quickly. My colleague from California said that the Republicans are not united on voter ID, and that is absolutely, absolutely, positively false. This is really important because you can't make accusations here that are false. My colleague from Ohio, the Presiding Officer, has put forward the exact, in essence, voter ID bill, and it was 53 out of 53 Republicans that voted for that--53 out of 53. That is 100 percent of Republicans. If I did that math correctly, I believe that 53 out of 53 is 100 percent. Where he is correct is that Democrats are united in their opposition. There wasn't a single Democrat that voted for a stand-alone voter ID bill. Tonight, we have the opportunity to do that--ban insider trading and get voter ID on the floor. Because my colleagues don't want to do what the American people want them to do, I object.

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“I want to clear up some things. I sponsored a different bill called the PELOSI Act. It is similar to the HONEST Act. I did not sponsor the HONEST Act. It would be insane to ban ownership of all assets. Democrats tried to make us vote on a bill we had not read. That is insane. We could pass the PELOSI Act today. It would ban insider trading. It is a good bill. It applies to all Members of Congress. We should be able to ban insider trading without Democrats blocking the vote.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, so I think it is important to clear up a couple of things in no particular order. First of all, I did not cosponsor the HONEST Act. I was the cosponsor of the PELOSI Act, which was a tribute--an honor--to the Member of the House of Representatives that made grift on this job an absolute master class. Your Representative from Northern California came here almost five decades ago and has managed to build a $300 million net worth. Her Twitter account is one of the most followed accounts, as my colleague from Nebraska pointed out. So I was very proud to sponsor the PELOSI Act. In fact, it is extraordinarily similar to the exact same measure my colleague from Utah and my colleague from Nebraska have proposed, as has the Presiding Officer, my colleague from Ohio. So just to clear that up. Then the next question was: Well, why would you not sponsor a bill called the HONEST Act? I mean--my God--how do you be anti-honest? Well, that bill basically bans the ownership of all assets. You can't even own them. So if you have mutual funds, stocks, equities, investments, you have to get rid of all of that. So, basically, that would be insane. There is no other way to look at that. The Democrats put that in place during a Homeland Security meeting which went something like this. We sat down to talk about the PELOSI Act, and they gave us 15 pages of amended documents and said: Hey, we are going to vote on this right now. And, again--I should have predicted it, honestly, because it was a tribute to Nancy Pelosi, who said: Well, you have to vote for the bill before you know what is in it. Of course, Republicans said: We are not going to vote for something we haven't read--because, again, that is insane. But it wasn't as insane as what is actually in that bill. Now, let's go back to what we are really doing here tonight. We could pass this today. Tomorrow, the President of the United States could sign into law a ban on insider trading. This is a 100-percent zero issue. Sometimes we talk about 80-20 issues. There is not an American citizen--well, maybe Paul Pelosi--who would be against this. But all Americans want us to get this done, and it is very commonsense. My colleague from Nebraska worked diligently on this. It is a great bill. It says if you own stocks when you get here, you can't buy more--so, therefore, you can't use the information--and you can't sell stocks without a 7-day notice period, which, in effect, eliminates any kind of advantage that you would have. It is a very good bill. It applies to all Members of Congress. We should be able to get that done. We should be able to ban insider trading without Democrats blocking that vote. My colleague, I believe, from Nebraska--if the Presiding Officer could ask him; I want to be clear--he has asked for a vote at 60; is that correct?

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Senate

Unanimous Consent Requests (Executive Session)

2026-07-27

“The other side blocked my bill. My bill would stop insider trading by Congress. It is popular. Most Democrats and Republicans support it. The President would sign it. But Democrats blocked it. They say it needs voter ID. They don't like voter ID. I say voter ID is normal. You need ID at Olive Garden. Why not for voting? Democrats blocked two popular things. They don't want to stop grift. They just say nice words. But they don't do it. That's bad.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. There is an expression that says don't let facts get in the way of a good story. What we just heard is a good story. Let's, unfortunately, dissect the facts that are completely inaccurate. I am on the Homeland Security Committee; my colleague from California is not. That was not the bill that we sponsored. The bill that we sponsored was something called the PELOSI Act, your longtime Member of Congress from California, who perfected the grift of insider trading, who came to Congress, I think when I was born, when the Presiding Officer was born, and well before our colleague from Florida was born, and has somehow managed to be worth $300-plus million. That is why I thought it would be in honor of her that we would introduce the PELOSI Act, the ability to just stop insider trading. Let me just also be clear about where we stand on this bill. This is a massively bipartisan bill that came out of the House. Every Republican voted for it and 13 Democrats, which never vote unless every Democrat is voting together, voted for this bill. And if not for the objection that you just heard, if not for the objection from my colleague from California, tomorrow the President of the United States would have signed this bill into law. And what would it have meant? What would the President tomorrow have signed had this objection not been heard? No longer can Members of Congress or their spouses or their adult children buy stocks with inside information. They would not be able to sell stocks without a 7-day public announcement period, which would, in effect, end forever the practice of insider trading that has plagued this Congress. We could have gotten that done. So I want you to process that for a second. There are commercials 99 days before the midterm elections in which Democrats, including the Presiding Officer's disastrous opponent, that are talking about banning insider trading. That guy was here for 30-plus years. My colleague from California has been here for 5 years. The three of us have been here for 18 months, and we could have passed a bill tonight to ban insider trading. Democrats have blocked the ability to ban insider trading. Those words don't even make sense to me as I say it. Why? It is the classic DC two-step: introduce an alternative measure that they know will never pass so they can keep the grift operation going. Be able to say: Oh, look, we oppose that, too, but this doesn't go far enough. My colleague from California worked with me diligently--I might add, which I appreciated--to ban prediction markets for the entire U.S. Senate. We got that done. It didn't touch the President. It didn't even touch the House of Representatives. We got it done here in the U.S. Senate. I am proud of that. I am proud that now people--the American people-- know that no Member of the U.S. Senate or their staffs, by the way, can participate in the prediction markets. We got that done because we advanced the ball. We can advance the ball tonight and ban insider trading for all of Congress. The House handed us a bill. We say yes; the President signs it tomorrow. You sent the letter. My colleague from California sent a letter to the CFTC, talking about the downside of insider trading among Congress back in January. We could avoid it. We don't need to send letters. We could ban insider trading tonight. Democrats have refused to do that. Now let's talk about voter ID. By the way, it is called the SAVE America Act, not the SAVE Act. It is called the SAVE America Act. We have talked about it in this Chamber for hundreds of hours. Let's get the name right. This is not the SAVE America Act. The SAVE America Act, for some reason, is unanimous in its opposition by the Democrat Members of this Chamber. They are totally, completely united on not passing the SAVE America Act, which does two things, by the way. You have to prove you are a citizen when you register. You have to show voter ID when you vote. That is it--two things. This particular measure in this bill is just photo ID. If you get the all-you-can-eat, Never-Ending Pasta Bowl at Olive Garden, you have to have a photo ID to get another bowl of spaghetti in California. So if I go to my favorite Olive Garden in Los Angeles and I have my Never- Ending Pasta Bowl, I have to bring my ID. But if I go vote, I don't have to. I think most Americans would think that is insane. I think most Americans would think that is nutty. Why would you not have to show your ID? It has nothing to do with registration. You mentioned registering to vote. It has nothing to do with registering to vote. It is strictly voter ID when you vote, and there is not IDs that are banned. That is just not true. Read the bill. It is simple voter ID: a government-issued ID--your picture, your name, your signature--pretty straightforward--80-20 issue. I think 99-1 issue, honestly, but they say it is an 80-20 issue. They got 13 Democrats in the House that voted for this. They knew that if the Senate took this up tonight, what they did last week would become law. We could have gotten voter ID in the entire country. Mr. President, 30-plus States already have it. And we would have banned insider trading. Those two things could have happened tonight. And the fact that they didn't is a decently sad day--July 27, 2026, the day Democrats said we shouldn't have voter ID in America and we shouldn't ban insider trading. Let me just close with a little anecdote. I was asked by the Government of Colombia to go down and monitor their elections. That was a great honor, being born in Colombia--a full circle of my life. Now I am here in the Senate. Imagine somebody in Colombia has asked me to go down and monitor the election. By the way, I knew as much as you, Mr. President, about how the elections in Colombia works. Actually, that is not true, you probably knew more. I had no idea. I go down there. And what do they require in Colombia, South America: A country with abject poverty, dramatically less well-off than the United States, dramatically more ethnically diverse, by the way--they require every citizen of Colombia to carry with them a national ID card that proves they are a citizen. They are not even allowed into the hall where the voting happens without that national ID card that proves they are a citizen of the country of Colombia. And when they go to vote, they have to get their fingerprints done and their signature, show that ID with their photo on it, before they are handed a paper ballot that is counted by hand. And the election results--after 25 million votes--takes 1 hour. The GDP of Colombia is less than the GDP of L.A., and yet the mayor's race in L.A.--3 weeks after the election--they are still counting votes. Now, I was in the registrar's office, afterward, debriefing on the election. We are obviously speaking in Spanish because we are in Colombia. And I asked them what happens if somebody walks into the hallway--they wander into the hall--they want to vote, and they don't have their ID card? Now I came to the United States when I was 5. My siblings make fun of me and say my Spanish is not perfect. It probably isn't. So when I said that, the registrar turned to his assistant and said ``I think the Senator has lost his Spanish.'' And his assistant says ``What do you mean?'' He says ``I don't understand his question.'' So he repeated it in perfect Spanish. He turned to me, and he goes, ``What a dumb question. Of course, we wouldn't let somebody come in and vote without their ID. That would be abject idiocy''--his words. And yet a dozen-plus States in the United States of America--the most rich and powerful country on Earth--does not have voter ID. We could have gotten that done tonight. For that reason, I object.

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Senate

Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 811 (Executive Calendar)

2026-07-22

“This resolution is not about insulting Canadians. It is about calling out bad leaders in Canada. I respect the people of Canada. They are victims of bad leaders. Leaders in Canada dumped a year's worth of auto pollution on our states. It is man-made. It is not natural. Canadian leaders stopped our firefighters from helping them. This is a man-made disaster. It is not made by the people of Canada. It is made by the leaders of Canada. Shame on them. Shame on anyone who apologizes for what they are doing to our people.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, very briefly, let me make a couple of things clear. This resolution isn't about insulting Canadians; this resolution is about calling out inept leaders in Canada. I have total and complete respect for the people of Canada. Unfortunately, they are victimized by terrible leaders. To just turn a blind eye to the fact that they just dumped in your State and my State the equivalent of a year's worth of auto pollution in America, on the Midwest, and pretend it isn't manmade--they don't have centralized response. This idea that they helped us is totally false. They charge us to come to the United States to help put out our forest fires that, by the way, are also created by ineptitude in Washington, Oregon, and California. And then when our firefighters ask to go to Canada to help them, they prevent them from coming in. So this is completely a manmade disaster, but it is not made by the people of Canada; it is made by the leaders of Canada. And shame on them, and shame on anybody apologizing for what they are doing to the people of our States.

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Senate

Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 557 (Executive Calendar)

2026-07-21

“I object to this resolution. It sounds mild, but it's actually a bunch of empty words. Democrats had control and they betrayed working Americans. They gave subsidies to rich people for luxury electric vehicles. Democrats never explain why they support bad policies like that. And they never mention that China is the biggest polluter. Democrats want to shut down American industry and let China pollute. They don't support clean natural gas from my state. Their policies are hypocritical. They want to ban cars, but don't mention bigger sources of pollution like forest fires. I'm tired of the hypocrisy. That's why I object to this resolution.”

Official Congressional Record

Madam President, reserving the right to object, let me say a few things. One, resolutions like this sound very much mild. It actually is just a bunch of words that basically just say: What is wrong with that? What is wrong with saying something like that? So let me explain where these kinds of ideas go. When the Democrats had control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, they had the opportunity to help working Americans--the people who work every day to build this country, the middle class that all of us should be advocating for, the very people that--the New England Democrats that I once knew--J.F.K., et cetera--would have made their entire party platform about helping working Americans. Instead, what did they do? They betrayed working Americans with a wide, open border that lowered and suppressed wages. They passed electric vehicle subsidies. Let me walk you through exactly what the Democrats did, taking this kind of resolution to the maximum. They passed a subsidy that gave multimillionaires the ability to get $7,500 of taxpayer money to lease a luxury imported vehicle. And 250,000 of the wealthiest Americans got $7,500 each to lease a luxury electric vehicle because for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that somehow would solve the issue of climate change. Not one single Democrat has ever answered the question: Why on Earth would you have possibly put forward horrific public policy like that? No. 2, if you notice, in the Senator from Rhode Island's presentation, there wasn't a single time he mentioned the largest polluter on Earth, which happens to be the People's Republic of China. We have been enabling the Chinese economy for decades. It was this body that normalized relations with China in 2000, that allowed them to come into the World Trade Organization and systematically pollute the planet. They are building coal facilities every week, while the Democrats, when they had control of government, were shutting them down. You could describe what was just discussed as an absolute China-first policy--America last, China first. One-third of all global pollution comes from China, and yet my colleague comes up here to talk about climate change and doesn't say a single word about that country. In fact, he continues to espouse policies that enable the Chinese. For example, in the aforementioned electric vehicle subsidies, most of those batteries that were in those electric vehicles came from Chinese battery manufacturers--made with slave wages, slave labor; using power derived from the very carbon emissions that you denounce. You live in a State that derives its electricity from the worst possible carbon footprint. You have electricity that comes over from Canada--propane, delivered on diesel trucks--because you refuse to build a pipeline from my State, where we can give you clean, natural gas that would reduce carbon emissions. The hypocrisy goes on and on. Then let's talk about recent events. My colleague, I have heard him, because I sit where you sit periodically, say the same thing many, many times in my 18 months that I have been here. He talks about electric vehicles: We have got to get off of internal combustion engines--a big policy of the Democrat Party. Let me give you a little statistic on automobiles. If you took every single car--automobile--off of the roads of America, nobody could drive a car for 12 months. That is nuts. I would suggest that is bad public policy. But follow me on that one: no automobiles on American roads for 12 months. The amount of carbon emissions that has polluted mostly the Midwest, over the last 2 weeks, because of mismanagement of Canada's forests, is equivalent to an entire year of carbon emissions from automobiles. Yet my colleague has not once called into question the fact that the Canadians do not allow our firefighters to go into their country to help, that they have mismanaged the way they coordinate these fire responses. They don't have a central entity to control it. No comment on the fact that millions of people in my State have been absolutely poisoned with carbon pollution coming from Canada. But what does he want? He wants our industries to be collapsed, our industries to be held to a different standard--not one word from China--and espousing policies like this electric vehicle subsidy for the richest Americans, while, at the same time, there are people flying around in private jets to global conferences to talk about climate change. Spare me the hypocrisy. And for all of those reasons and many, many more, I object. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Curtis). The objection is heard. The Senator from Rhode Island.

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Senate

Order for Adjournment

2026-07-20

“I'm upset that Democrats aren't debating this issue. I want a debate. I don't like that they called Georgia's election law Jim Crow 2.0. It's hypocritical. Voters didn't have issues with voter ID. A Senator is running under the law he called Jim Crow 2.0. I want a debate on this and other issues. The Senate should debate issues that 80% of Americans support. I want Democrats to explain their position. Republicans are ready for a debate. The people deserve a debate.”

Official Congressional Record

That would be the Democrat Party. And what is even more interesting about that is that phrase, Jim Crow 2.0--you know how sometimes you are like: Haven't I heard that before? And we have heard that before. When Georgia reformed its elections laws, I think 2021--I don't know the exact date--the Democrats called it Jim Crow 2.0. In fact, the Major League Baseball moved the All-Star Game from Atlanta because they said they couldn't support these kinds of racist actions in Georgia. Companies boycotted Georgia because of this. Georgia was persona non grata as a State. But they went forward with their elections reforms. And what was the result? Record voter turnout. Zero issue with anybody having voter ID. In fact, the Senators from Georgia--one of them is running right now under the very laws that he called Jim Crow 2.0, and he hasn't given one speech in which he says that Georgia's voter laws are anything other than common sense. Now, you remember even celebrities went out and did videos bemoaning Georgia. If that is not hypocrisy, what is? But here is how I will end for my colleagues: I think the American people deserve a debate. By the way, not just on this issue. I have been here for 18 months. Mr. President, you have been here for exactly the same period of time. This is exactly the number of debates I have seen in this Chamber: zero--zero debates. I think most Americans--I think you and I are probably shocked by that. Because when you and I were running for office, we are like: We are going to get ready. We are going in to debate. We don't do debates. We do things like this: empty floor, not a single Democrat hearing the argument. I am bringing up: Hey, how about this? There is nobody to respond. Let's have a debate. When 80-plus percent of the American people support a piece of legislation, it boggles the imagination of how the U.S. Senate can't, at a minimum, debate the issue. So to my colleagues, my Democrat side, we don't need to get rid of the filibuster--just like you wanted to, by the way. The Democrats wanted to get rid of the filibuster to pass the For the People Act, by the way. Thanks to Manchin and Sinema, that didn't happen. But we don't have to do that. Let's have a debate. Come out here point by point and explain to the American people why you feel the way you do. I don't want to speak for anybody else, but I can tell you the Republicans are ready for that debate. We look forward to that debate. The American people deserve that debate. Let's do it.

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“It's ridiculous that we're talking about this. Democrats won't even have a real debate. We're not addressing the issues that matter to everyday Americans. They say it's like Jim Crow. That's a lazy attack.”

Official Congressional Record

Well, obviously, we are being sarcastic, and the reason we are being sarcastic is this is really ridiculous. It actually is just blatantly ridiculous that we are sitting here on the floor of the U.S. Senate, not debating--at all, by the way, clearly--not talking about the problems that everyday Americans are facing, but trying to get some 80-20, 90-10 issues across the finish line, and Democrats won't even engage in the conversation. Because it is so ridiculous that we have the Olive Garden require ID for the all-you-can eat pasta bowl, but we allow people to vote without showing who they are. That is just truly, patently absurd. What is even more absurd is that my colleague from Ohio put forward a very simple voter ID. Just said: Hey, look--by the way, photo ID means the ID has to have a photo. That is in the word. So you have to have something that has your photo, your name, and your signature in order to vote. He put that bill forward because he is a good guy. He wants to get things done. He is somebody who genuinely in his heart of hearts is drawn to service. That is who Senator Husted is. They had said they would vote for voter ID. He put it on the floor three times. That bill has been on the floor of the Senate three times. And all three times Democrats have voted against simple voter ID. That makes no sense. I have also--next objection--I have heard Democrats talk about: Well, States already have voter ID. In fact, one of our Democrat colleagues was on ABC yesterday talking about how there is already voter ID, except not in his State. And it was the moderator who had to point that out to him. That was embarrassing because you really should know the voter laws in your own State. But clearly not all States require voter ID. So all we are saying is: Let's just have all 50 States require voter ID, and let's have all 50 States require proof of citizenship. Final one I hear quite a bit--in fact, I hear it most from the minority leader--is that this is Jim Crow 2.0. For those of you who are under the age of 60 who may not know what that means, it basically means this is racist--which is, of course, the ultimate laziest way to attack somebody because they just label you a racist: This is Jim Crow 2.0. And those are dark, dark, dark times in American history. And I think using those kinds of references is just grossly inappropriate.

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“I want to mock the idea that voter ID laws are unfair to Hispanics. I say that Hispanics can find their ID in their home countries. I think it is not true that they can't find their ID in America. I make a joke that maybe they lose this ability when they cross the border.”

“I say our elections are not secure. We need voter ID and proof of citizenship. Other countries require this. It's common sense. The Democrats don't want this. They can't justify why.”

Official Congressional Record

Democrat response? Hearing none. The other objection that we get is our elections are already secure. Our elections are very secure. But doesn't it kind of override common sense to say: If you are not having to prove you are a citizen to vote, if you are not having to show your ID, if we just automatically mail out ballots without really knowing that that person is there and that person didn't request it, aren't we opening the door to having that lack of integrity of our elections? I will tell you a quick anecdotal story. I was asked to be an election monitor by the Governor of Colombia in a recent Presidential election. I knew as much about the Colombian election as any American, meaning nothing. So I went down there, and they require all the things I just talked about. They require everybody to be a citizen of Colombia to vote in Colombian elections. They require that ID to be shown. They actually have facial recognition scanners and fingerprint readers in case there is a question whether that picture matches you. You know, like, if you are the Realtor that has the picture of you 40 years ago, sometimes it is like: Is that really you? So they have the facial recognition, the fingerprint, paper ballots. So I was huddling with the registrar afterwards. And, of course, we are in Colombia; so we are speaking Spanish. And I said to him: Well, what happens if somebody doesn't show up with a voter ID, like, his ID? What do you do? And we were having a pretty good conversation until I asked that question. And he turned to his assistant and in Spanish says: I think the Senator has lost his Spanish because I don't understand what he is asking me. And his assistant repeated it. And he completely looked at me like I was a knucklehead and said: Why would you possibly let somebody vote that doesn't have an ID to prove who they are? In other words, the question was so ridiculous that he thought it had to be a language barrier. Is there any way to justify the other position, since our colleagues--who were just here. They all ran off. During your speech, the majority leader ran through--is there any justification for not having to do this?

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“You say this is already illegal. But I want this law passed. If you don't enforce laws, that's like eliminating them. We need to check if people are following the laws.”

Official Congressional Record

The response? Hearing none. All right. We are going to move on to objection No. 2; that is, it is already illegal. It is interesting because that is a good point. I look and that and go: Wow, they just made a really good point. This is already illegal. What problem are we trying to solve? Now, of course, we know it is already illegal. What we are asking is to have the integrity of it. So what they are trying to do is say: Speeding is illegal, but you can't check to see if anybody is speeding, which makes it legal. Because if you are not enforcing laws, aren't you, in effect, eliminating those laws? So if they are saying: Well, it is already illegal. You don't need to prove you are a citizen because it is already illegal to vote as a noncitizen, but if you are not allowing inspections of voter rolls, making certain that people are purged properly, wouldn't that be basically ignoring the law completely?

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