Political Quotes

“we live in partisan times, but there are moments when we can break through the typical divisions and work together on matters of real urgency. The anti-Asian hate crimes legislation this week is such a matter. It is a very straightforward and relatively modest bill to address a pressing and important issue in the country. It would designate a point person at the Justice Department to identify hate crimes towards Asian Americans related to COVID-19--telling Federal law enforcement to make these hate crimes a top priority during the pandemic. Just as important, it would send a strong message to two groups: to the Asian-American community that the country is paying attention to them and to all of America that this kind of bigotry cannot be tolerated. I was gratified to hear the Republican leader yesterday say that the Senate Republican conference wanted to move forward on the bill. This bill was never intended to be some kind of ``gotcha'' legislation. It is led by Senators Hirono and Duckworth, two outstanding Asian-American Senators who rightfully want to respond to the rising tide of anti-Asian violence over the past year. When they asked me to move the bill quickly, I thought that was exactly the right thing to do, and here it is on the floor. The fact that Leader McConnell said yesterday he believes discrimination against Asian Americans is a real problem and wants to move forward and be constructive is a very good thing, and I salute him for it.…”