When the memorial service for George Floyd began in Minnesota, Paul, who had passed popular bipartisan legislation to make the death penalty a federal crime, came to the Senate floor in Washington to add amendments to the law without the death penalty without trial and then passed it. He believes the bill was written too broadly and said that the amendment “will apply criminal penalties only to the lynching and not to other crimes.” The GOP senator then asked for unanimous approval to pass the bill with the amendment. However, both Harris and Booker opposed the effort and Booker objected.
“Senator Paul is now trying to undermine the bill that was passed – there is no reason for this, there is no reason for this,” Harris said.
In his emotional remarks, Booker said he felt “very raw today,” saying, “of all days we do this now when God, if this bill is passed today, what does it mean for America. That this body and that body have finally agreed. ”
“That will talk a lot for racial pain and generational wounds,” Booker said. Raising his voice, he continued, “I don’t need my colleague, Senator from Kentucky, to tell me about the lynching in this country. I stand in a museum in Montgomery, Alabama, and watch African-American families cry there. – stories about pregnant women being hanged in this country and their babies being removed while they are doing nothing. ”
Pointing to Paul, Booker said that he did not question Paul’s heart, but strongly disagreed with his actions.
“My colleague there, Rand Paul, was one of the first hands to tremble” on the floor of the Senate, Booker said. “He is my friend … but I am very raw today.”
“I am trying to change this law not because I consider capital punishment without lenient punishment, but because I take it seriously, and this law does not,” Paul said, arguing that “this bill will reduce the meaning of the lynching by define it broadly by including minor bruises or abrasion. Our country’s history of racial terrorism demands more seriousness from us than that. ”
Shortly after, GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska came to the floor for a speech she had planned for weeks to give to women’s suffrage. He took a moment before his speech to talk about the debate he had just seen and to say a few words of his own about the state of the country.
“I just want you to know that I’m thankful that I’m here on the floor to hear privately. We can read words, but when we have the ability to hear and feel those words, their true meaning comes out,” Murkowski said to Booker and Harris.
Murkowski said he wanted to talk today because he felt too silent.
“I have been challenged by several people. I have been punished by some … from some very close friends who say ‘you are silent, Lisa. Why don’t you fix what we see?’ I have struggled with the right words.When a white woman was born and raised in Alaska with a special family, I could not feel the openness and rudeness that I had just heard expressed by my friends Cory and Kamala, I had not lived their lives “I can listen, and I can educate myself, and I can try to be a physician when we need to be healed.”