Tom Udall: “I am very happy to be joined on the floor with Senator Merkley, who has worked with me for a long time on the For the…”

“I am very happy to be joined on the floor with Senator Merkley, who has worked with me for a long time on the For the People Act, and we will both be speaking here in that order. The American people sent us here to do the people's business, but under Republican leadership, the Senate is not responding to what the American people need and want. We are not solving the kitchen table issues the American people elected us to face every day. For example, we are not making sure every American has access to affordable, quality healthcare. We need to lower costs and take on Big Pharma, and we are not doing that. We are not passing commonsense gun safety legislation that 90 percent of the voters support in order to stop shootings in the schools, on our streets, and in our communities. If we can't pass bills that save children's lives, our democracy is not working. We are not even taking on the most pressing issue that faces our planet--climate change. Younger generations are urging us to act, but this body is running away from taking any action. The number of gravestones in the majority leader's legislative graveyard--where urgent bills are stalled and buried--steadily mounts. Bills keep going into the majority leader's graveyard, but Congress will not and cannot do the people's business when the bills to fix our democracy also rest in that graveyard. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the For the People Act, H.R. 1. It passed it in March.…”