WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn) on Thursday spoke on the U.S. Senate floor to object to U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) sham school safety legislation.

“I have very little interest in engaging on the merits of these proposals in a dialogue on the floor of the Senate because they are not serious attempts to make our kids safer...The confrontation that he's looking for will probably lead to a bunch of cable news appearances being booked, but it's not going to save any kids’ lives,” Murphy said. “The Senator knows this is not how the Senate works. This isn't an autocracy, it's not a dictatorship. You don't come down here and introduce a piece of legislation, and two minutes later, demand that the entirety of the Senate agree to it without any debate, any negotiation…They're not even fully formed pieces of legislation. This thing is so ham-handed that one of the bills, there's literally brackets and question marks in the text.”

On passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, Murphy said: “What happened last summer after the shooting in the Senator's state, is that serious members of this body, members of this body who are more interested in legislating than enacting political theater, sat down together and negotiated a bill to save children's lives. Did it solve all of the problems in this country? Did it guarantee every child’s safety? No, it did not. But let's be clear. Senator Cruz never expressed one iota of interest in being part of those negotiations.”

Murphy concluded: “[I]'m not saying that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act solved the problem. I know we have more work to do. I know it because I spend time with those same families every single week. I know it because I live in a dangerous neighborhood in South Hartford. I talk to those kids who have to fear for their life when they go to school. And that’s why my purpose for being in the Senate is to work like hell across the aisle, through compromise. Not by coming down here, dropping a bill on the floor, and then immediately demanding that the entire Senate vote on it. That's not how we save kids’ lives.”

Last summer, Murphy authored the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, legislation to strengthen federal gun safety laws, invest in mental health services for children and families, and increase funding for school safety. The President signed the bill into law on June 25, 2022.

A full transcript of Murphy’s remarks can be found below:

“Mr. President, the Senator is right. I have very little interest in engaging on the merits of these proposals in a dialogue on the floor of the Senate because they are not serious attempts to make our kids safer. These unanimous consent requests that Senator Cruz makes are going to get a lot of clicks online. The confrontation that he's looking for will probably lead to a bunch of cable news appearances being booked, but it's not going to save any kids’ lives.

“The Senator knows this is not how the Senate works. This isn't an autocracy, it's not a dictatorship. You don't come down here and introduce a piece of legislation, and two minutes later, demand that the entirety of the Senate agree to it without any debate, any negotiation. The Senator says [these are] the same bills he introduced last year, but as far as I can tell, he introduced the bills he is making unanimous consent requests on minutes ago. They're not even fully formed pieces of legislation. This thing is so ham-handed that one of the bills, there's literally brackets and question marks in the text. The legislative drafters, at least in the version that I see, haven't made decisions on when the money is being spent.

“The Senator says that there's this pattern that plays out after the shootings, in which Democrats make demands about taking people's guns away, but aren't serious about making our kids safer. Is that how it played out after the shooting in Uvalde? Is that what happened last summer? No, that's not what happened.

“What happened last summer after the shooting in the Senator's state, is that serious members of this body, members of this body who are more interested in legislating than enacting political theater, sat down together and negotiated a bill to save children's lives. Did it solve all of the problems in this country? Did it guarantee every child’s safety? No, it did not.

“But let's be clear. Senator Cruz never expressed one iota of interest in being part of those negotiations. Other Republican senators did, and while I understand he objects to the gun provisions in that bill, guess what? That bill also put $15 billion into school safety, into mental health, into hardening our schools, into community anti-gun violence programs.

“I can't speak about the other members of the group that authored that bill, but I never got a single phone call from Senator Cruz during the month of negotiations, suggesting that we add the language he's talking about to that proposal.

“Last summer, there were serious legislators who come to this floor to enact legislation, to set aside our differences and pass legislation that makes our kids safe, willing to make compromise. Senator Cruz didn't even sniff that room.

“He references the unanimous consent request he made later last year that I objected to. I think I suggested then, as I suggest now, that the result of that unanimous consent request was to create political theater and book cable news hits. The result was not going to be a piece of legislation being enacted. And I figured that if I was wrong about that, if the Senator’s purpose was to pass a piece of legislation, that the result of my objection would have been to get outreach from the Senator's office, to try to figure out a way forward, to try to find a compromise.

“I waited, and I waited, and I waited, and I waited, and I waited. But not once did Senator Cruz reach out and say let's work together to get this done. Which confirmed my suspicions that these unanimous consent requests are not about passing legislation, they're just about creating conflict for the sake of conflict.

“This legislation was introduced minutes ago, so I'm not able to debate the merits it on the floor of the Senate right now. It appears to make a whole bunch of changes to the not for profit security grant program that the Presiding Officer knows very well, changes that have little to do with school safety. It seems that there's a bunch of processes changes to the not for profit security grant program. That’s probably something worth having a conversation with the chairman of the committee about before we pass it by unanimous consent.

“It makes broad structural changes to Title IV, which is a very important program for schools. They use that money for school security, but they also use that money for a host of other important programs. That’s probably worth having a conversation with the members of the Education Committee about. A very quick look at this bill suggests that it likely opens up the use of those funds to arming teachers in our schools. I think that's a terrible idea.

“This is all to say that this isn't how the process works. You don't drop a piece of legislation on the floor of the Senate and two minutes later, demand that the whole Senate passes it. You do that if your intent is to create conflict for the purposes of publicity. I don't know what the Senator’s intentions are, but if that was your intention this is what you do. If you were interested in actually passing something, you would have dialed up the authors of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and asked to be part of that negotiation. You would've reached out to my office after the objection last year, and said, 'What's your objection? Let's sit down and do something together.'

“That's how legislation gets passed in this place. I know because I've done it on this topic, and I'm not saying that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act solved the problem. I know we have more work to do. I know it because I spend time with those same families every single week. I know it because I live in a dangerous neighborhood in South Hartford. I talk to those kids who have to fear for their life when they go to school.

“And that’s why my purpose for being in the Senate is to work like hell across the aisle, through compromise. Not by coming down here, dropping a bill on the floor, and then immediately demanding that the entire Senate vote on it. That's not how we save kids’ lives. Compromising, working towards compromise, behind the scenes not always in front of the cameras.

“I object.”

 

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