republic, an attack on our republic. i still can just picture it like it just happened, where senator blunt and i were the last two remaining senators in this chamber at 3:30 in the morning along with the incredible staff from the parliamentarian's office, with the pages, along with vice president pence, and the two young women with that mahogany box filled with the remaining electoral ballots, and we made our way eefer to -- over to the house of representatives where glass was smashed against the side, spray paints on statues and on columns, and we finished our job. and two weeks later as we stood on that inaugural stage, democrats, republican leaders of both parties from this chamber, all the senators from this chamber, leaders nationally, republicans, democrats stood on that stage under that beautiful blue sky with little flakes of snow. it was like everything was in technocolor. as i said that day, this is the day where democracy brushes itself up, stands straight and moves forward one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. maybe i was naive. i thought this was the moment in the middle of this raging pandemic that we were going to move forward as a country, and we did. but lurking, lurking in the background was claims, false, incredibly dangerous claims that somehow the election was invalid. and along with that, a coordinated effort across the country to introduce bills, over 425 of them now, to make it harder, not easier, for people to vote. and what has been the result of this democracy on fire? what happened here in the capitol? that canister of bear spray has been replaced by bill after bill after bill. those flagpoles that were used to poke and jab at our brave officers that are here to defend us, resulting in several of their deaths, that's been replaced by repeated efforts to lie about the results of the election. what has happened to our democracy? members in this chamber know well. this year alone capitol police have responded to nearly 9,000 threats against members of congress since the beginning of the year. 9,000 threats. that's nearly double the threats faced by members just three years ago. election officials across the country have also been targeted by an overwhelming increase in the number of threats. senator blunt and i held a rules committee hearing on this deeply disturbing trend this fall. we heard from the kentucky republican secretary of state who said if we do not act, states and localities will be unable to retain or recruit people to administer future elections. he talked about the need to make it very clear that elected -- that local elected officials who are administering, administering the election should be safe, that they should not be threatened. then we heard from others. republican philadelphia city commissioner al schmitt shared some of the horrifying threats he and his family received after he stood up to lies about election fraud, including a message that said tell the truth or your three kids will be fatally shot, with the names of his seven-year-old son and his 11- and 14-year-old daughters, their address, photos of their house out on the internet. arizona secretary of state katie haas received a voice mail saying i am a hunter, and i think you should be hunted. this is just a few examples. this is happening across our country. this is why we have united on this side of the aisle behind the freedom to vote act. it takes these threats against these election officials head on by establishing a right to vote and have every vote counted. protects election officials from improper removal by partisan actors. protects against sham audits like the one we saw in arizona and the ones being advanced in wisconsin, michigan, texas, and pennsylvania. and strengthens the protections for election workers by making it a federal crime to intimidate, threaten, or coerce election workers. it was during senator bob dole's funeral service in washington that president biden reminded us what senator dole had once said. you see, senator dole stood against the tide. he supported civil rights legislation when that was a really hard thing to do. he supported the martin luther king holiday. and the words he said at that time ring true today. he said this -- no first-class democracy can treat people like second-class citizens. no first-class democracy can treat people like second-class citizens. his warning is exactly what's going on today. efforts to treat some americans as second-class citizens by making them stand hours and hours and hours to vote in lines. by telling them, oh, by the way, you're not going to be able to do like you did before, get water and food. certain people that might give it to you while you're standing in line, a story we heard in georgia. by telling them a story that would have been put in milwaukee. or like what we saw in the last election in harris county, a county that has about as much people as my entire state. we're only going to have one dropoff box there in that county. taking away options for registering to vote, making it harder for people with disabilities or elderly voters to receive the assistance they need to make their voices heard. telling people, if you've got covid and you're in the hospital and you want to apply for a mail-in ballot because you obviously can't go in and vote, you need to get a notary public to sign the application, something south carolina had taken that requirement away and then they put it back in. over 400 bills introduced in nearly every state to limit the freedom to vote. over 30 already signed into law. that is why we must now establish national standards for voting, completely allowed for in the constitution, to make sure all voters can cast their ballots in the way that works best for them regardless of what zip code they live in. the need for federal action is urgent. redistricting is underway to draw congressional maps that will define our democracy for the next decade. and you know how many of these maps do not come close to reflecting in a nonpartisan basis what goes on in the state. we know what's been happening in wisconsin. actual, actual ideas and actual proposals supported by p someone in this very chamber to take away the right of the bipartisan election board to count the ballots, and instead have them counted by the legislature. with 19 states having enacted laws this year to roll back the freedom to vote, we can't simply sit back and watch our democracy be threatened. as senator reverend raphael warnock has said, what is this all about. some people don't want some people to vote. whether our democracy is threatened with bear spray, crowbars and axes or long lines, no-ballot dropoff boxes and secret money, it is still under siege and we must stand up and do what's right. we want trust in our government, trust regardless of where people are politically. my state has one of the highest voter turnouts in the country, if not the highest every single time, and we have elected a republican governor with those standards. we have elected democratic governors in tim walls and we have elected independent governors, jesse ventura. what's the difference? people are part of the franchise. they come up and say i didn't vote for you. i agreed with you on that, i like what you did on that. they're part of the franchise. as we've seen in states like georgia, florida, idaho, montana and texas, we are up against this coordinated attack. our democracy cannot wait. the infamous new law in j. that says you -- in georgia that says you can't vote on weekends in the runoff or register to vote during the runoff and there are limitations for voting by mail or the new requirement, the one that was taken out for the pandemic because it was so confusing, then put back in with this law that you have to put a date on the outside of your inside envelope, what date do you think that would be? anybody casting a ballot would say the date that i'm voting. no, no, it's your birth date that they ask you to put on the outside of that envelope. in iowa, new law cut the days of early voting by nine days and will close the polls an hour early. this was after the state, in the words of its own republican secretary of state that shattered its voter turnout last year. why do that except you're trying to make it hard for certain people to vote. in the words of a court about a north carolina law years ago, discrimination was -- with surgical precision. a new law in montana that i noticed says you can no longer register to vote on election day, after that having been an option in the state for 15 years. in texas, another new law eliminates drop boxes and puts new restrictions on vote by mail while also empowering partisan poll watchers. that's why we need the freedom to vote act, which builds on the framework put forward by our colleague and former west virginia secretary of state joe manchin in june. includes key reforms like ensuring voters have access like at least two weeks for early voting and voters can cast a mail-in ballot without an excuse. increasing transparency through the disclose act. i don't care if you're a democrat, republican, independent, what party you are in, you don't want to have money coming in elections, dark money that you can't even figure out where it's from, telling you stuff if you can't even figure out if it's true. this part of the bill would simply require super pacs and issue rad voca is i groups -- advocacy groups to disclose groups putting in $10,000 so at least you know to understand why they're doing it. it would prohibit partisan gerrymandering, so voters choose their elected officials, not the elected officials choosing who votes for them. we need to enact the bill now to give states time to implement these reforms. as i noted, the freedom to vote act has the support of all 50 senate democrats, and we have talked to our republican colleagues about this as well as the john lewis bill. why have we done that? for decades voting rights has been a bipartisan issue. in 2006, the voting rights act was reauthorized by a vote of 98-0. yes, 2006. it's not that long ago. 98-0. this bill already includes bipartisan proposals that included many of our republican colleagues. i know the honest ads act is in this bill. that's a bill that i did first with john mccain, who we so dearly miss, and now with senator graham. the secure elections act, which is about backup paper ballots and making sure that we don't have foreign interference in our election. that's a bill that senator lankford and i introduced together with the support of senator burr and warner and senator graham. but in october, when we had a vote to open debate on the freedom to vote act, not a single one of our republican colleagues voted to even debate the bill. and i see senator murkowski is here who did vote to allow debate on the john lewis bill, which is very, very important to our country that she stood up and said i may not agree with everything in this bill, but we should allow for debate. let's be clear again, article 1, section 4, of the constitution of the united states of america empowers congress to make or alter rules for federal elections at any time. i believe this provision was designed to help us in times like these, in times where we're seeing an assault on elections, where people are increasingly starting to distrust the results of elections. in the face of complete obstruction on something so fundamental as the freedom to vote, we must restore the senate with rule changes that will allow us to debate this bill. now, i just want to briefly address this, throughout senate history rules governing debate have changed multiple times. we just somehow found a way to vote on what was good, that was the debt ceiling vote. a little bit of a change to allow us to do that with a 51-vote margin. in fact, there are already 161 exceptions, exceptions to the filibuster. even the number of votes needed to end debate has changed. in 1975, senator mondale led the successful and bipartisan effort that reduce the cloture threshold from 67 to 60 votes. there have been cries for standing debates, standing what's called the standing filibuster. why is that? because proliferate an empty chamber right know -- because instead of an empty chamber right now, there's no one else here. and yet we have so many serious things before us. we have a continuing raging pandemic. we have climate change that's causing weather events we never thought possible, including thunderstorms in the middle of the state of minnesota in the middle of december. never in history have we had a tornado warning in our state in the middle of december. we've had tragedies across the midwest with storms and magnitudes we never thought possible. are we discussing that? no. are we discussing voting and what's happening in this country right now, except for me giving in long speech? no, we're not. so i think we know that this isn't the senate that's supposed to be the world's greatest deliberative body, that's supposed-to-a how us to have votes is on -- supposed to allow us to have votes orange serious issues, not to ram through things but to have discussions is on serious issues so we can make decisions. you think the rest of the world isn't watching what's going on here right now? simple attempts to do something about child care or preschool or reducing the prices of prescription drugs when we pay more in our country for prescription drugs than any other country in the world, and we're getting blocked from bringing those bills forward to have actual discussions on them or we're trying to fit them in little boxes of how they fit some archaic senator rule. even senator byrd, a strong defender of senate institutions, said back in 1979, certain rules that were necessary must be changed to reflect changed circumstances. well, i think an all-out assault on our democracy, that's a changed circumstance where at least we should be debating the solution in this chamber. i think being unable to advance things that we know we have to tackle, not just immediate crises -- because we're pretty good with those, we're pretty good with when a financial crisis occurs, when a storm or floods or tornadoes or hurricanes, we're pretty good at getting rescue help out there. but not everything is an immediate crisis. it's just a crisis about to happen. and our job, our duty when we take that oath, is to protect the constitution. that's what we want to debate right now on this floor instead of another empty chamber. and with the standing filibuster, the requiring of people to be here and debate and speak, it's not just an old movie then. it's real life, requiring people to actually be here and do their jobs. big surprise -- news bulletin. we're here debating real issues and legislation and voting on amendments and doing our jobs instead of just running back in here every four hours and making a vote and then going back out and making phone calls. protecting the freedom to vote has never been easy. throughout our country's 245-year history, we've had to course correct to ensure that our democracy for the people, by the people actually lived up to its ideals. voting is how americans control their government and hold elected officials accountable. so for anyone watching this at home, you want to hold people accountable? it's by making sure they have the right to vote so they can exercise their right to vote and their views at the polls in a safe way across this nation. and you want to hold them accountable is by actually having votes on bills and actually debating the issues of our time, as the rest of the world watches what should be the beacon of democracy. it strengthens our hand with the rest of the world, makes us stronger when our democracy is working and not when we've a bunch of people in here with bear spray and bayonets going after our police officers. that's the vision i'm sorry to say much of the world saw less than a year ago. and that's not a lasting vision that we want of this chamber or this democracy. americans have fought and died to protect our freedom to vote. they've done so on the battlefield and in marches during the civil rights movement and 56 years after the voting rights act was passed by this chamber and signed into law, we still continue this fight. but just as we know from those trying to keep their fellow americans from voting, those trying to undermine our very system of government in state after state across the country, they are not going to stop until we make clear that there's something larger than ourselves, as john mccain used to say. there's nothing more liberating than a cause larger than yourself. that cause, my friends in this chamber, is our very democracy. and that's why we won't stop. our nation was founded on the ideals of democracy, and we've seen for ourselves in this building how we can't afford to take it for granted. we have a lot of work to do rebuilding our country, and, no, we should not go home tomorrow. no, we should not, not when this is at stake. we must stand up for the salvation of our democracy and each day that we delay, it gets harder and harder to undo what is being done. we owe it to our country and to the future generation of americans to take care of this country. we are the stewards, my friends, of this nation right now, and our democracy. so many people before us have found a way to do the right thing, and in the words of bob dole, a first-class democracy, the people deserve better than being treated like second-class citizens. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. ms. murkowski: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alaska is recognized. ms. murkowski: thank you, madam president. i've come to the floor this afternoon to speak son a matter that is very local to alaska, very important to alaska, but before i begin my comments, i want to acknowledge a few of the comments of my friend from minnesota. clearly we share some of the same passions about the protections of our democracy, and i would absolutely agree that key and most fundamental is that right to vote. and i have clearly expressed that we -- we, as lawmakers, need to be there to ensure that our elections are free, fair, and accessible to all, that barriers to voting need to be addressed. she had noted that i have joined with others to try to address some of what i believe some of those impediments to voting through a measure that has been proposed to the john lewis voting rights act. it is not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, in my view, but i do think that it is something that is worthy of the debate -- i was going to call it grand debate on the floors but as she appropriately pointed out, there's not a lot of grand debate that goes on. more often than not, it's individuals who are speaking to those who are taking the time out of their day to tune in to c-span. but these are important discussions for us toss have. but i also want -- but i also recognize, i also recognize that enduring legislation comes about not because one party is able to make that happen on their own. enduring legislation, whether it's a civil rights act or whether it was the voting rights act, the enduring legislation that stays with us for generations and decades is that that is achieved when we have come together. we will never -- or it's very, very difficult to get entire consent of the body. but when we can achieve that bipartisan support and a recognition that this is good for both parties, good for all areas of america, this is when we do our best, when we come together to address these. and i hear the clear frustration that she has expressed, but i also recognize that how we do what we do is important. and if we peel away the last vestiges of protection for minority rights in the senate, the senate becomes a smaller version of the house, where you are able to effectively move things through just by the raw numbers. and so these are hard, these are challenging, these are worthy of our further and additional efforts. but i -- i would remind us that as we are seeking to make these generational differences, as we are seeking to provide for these enduring protections for democracy, that how we get there is also -- is also -- a matter of importance to this body. so i mention, madam president, that i came to the floor to speak about significant -- a significant matter for alaska. it is a significant milestone for my state. just two days from now on december 18 we will mark the 50th anniversary of the alaska native claims settlement act being signed into law by president nixon back in 1971. for those who are not familiar with alaska's history ancsa, as we call it, is one of the foundational laws for my state. it's settled aboriginal land claims. it settled hundreds of alaska corporations to own lands and to empower their alaska native shareholders. now you this structure is very unique. i think most of us think about a corporation and you think about an i.b.m. or a general electric. but an alaska native corporation and the shareholders that are part of them are very, very different than the corporate structure that most know. this approach that was arrived at with the alaska native claims settlement act was new. it was a clear departure from the reservation model in the lower 48. it ushered in a new level of economic self-determination through private landownership. alaska native leaders took a look at the reservation system that was throughout other parts of america and most of them -- not all -- decided on another path saying, that's not the route that we will take. they wanted to manage their lands, manage their resources on their own terms and to have greater economic prosperity and independence. so in alaska, we have 229 tribes in the state, and as someone who comes from a state where you do have many tribes, i think it always gets people's attention when we say we've got about 40% of the tribes in the nation that are located in alaska. ancsa established more than 200 village corporations along with regional and urban corporations. and under this settlement, congress transferred some 44 million acres of land in alaska to the private ownership of these newly created corporations. they also appropriated $962 million in compensation. so there was the transfer of ownership as well as the conveyance of dollars. so as shareholders, the alaska native people would then be able to decide for themselves how to use, how to protect, and how to guide development of their lands and the resources. as marlene johnson put it, ancsa meant that alaska natives, quote, were able to surround and put their arms around the land that belonged to their forefathers and will belong to their grandkids. and she said, that's really important. it really is. today the economic success of ancsa is as self-evident as it is self-determined. ancsa has positively impacted not just alaska native people but alaska as a whole. a.n.c.'s have become key economic drivers, creating jobs and industry in alaska but also across the country and even around the globe. a.n.c.'s consistently rank as the top-ten alaska-owned businesses by gross revenue and many of the largest office buildings and employers in anchorage and fairbanks and juneau are home to a.n.c.'s. they also provide scholarships and cultural stewardship often through their nonprofit foundations. because of ancsa, significant investments have been made in real estate, construction, tourism, workforce development, professional services, so much more. we've also seen the very clear benefit of resource development. we see this up in the nana region with the red dog mine. we're hoping that that can be replicated at prospects like donlan gold. revenue sharing, very, very unique within ancsa, but revenue sharing with village corporations and leadership in the area of cultural resource protection. we see that down in if the southeast region. these are just a few of the examples of where ancsa really got it right. so, as we look back at ancsa, we recognize that there were many, many people who helped to make it happen. not just president nixon, as i mentioned, the congressional del dation, of course -- delegation, of course, but more importantly, the many strong alaska native lead hers, like amil notty, john borbridge, among many, many others. we're fortunate that some of the key ancsa advocate are still with us today. but sadly, many of the visionary leaders who were so instrumental in the negotiations have passed on, and there's far too many to mention here. butly share the story of one of them. don wright, this individual right here, was born in nanana back in 1929. he's shown here with ted stevens, over to the right. this is don's wife, carol, and this is the senator from vermont, senator stafford. but don was known for his charisma and his skill as a negotiator and a political leader. many alaska natives at the time were just very, very personally invested in this effort, and he was one who really led in this. he personally contributed to the advocacy effort, both in time and money. don led that, along with others. but he and others spent nights sleeping on the streets here in washington, d.c., or in the halls of congress. they maxed out credit cards to pay for the long trips all the way from alaska to come here to d.c., to the capitol. don once paid the way for 20 alaskans to travel with him to lobby for the legislation. he was really all in. and he fought tirelessly to secure native land rights. he was president of the alaska federation of natives when ancsa actually became law. he was able to meet with president nixon in 1971 to encourage passage of the bill, and was truly a driving force hyped the effort. he framed it well by saying that year the president and the congress must decide whether this last chapter is to be written indignity or -- in dignity or dishonor. i think thanks to don wright and many other native leaders it was written in dignity. i am really very, very humbled by all of the incredible people who helped shape ancsa, many of whom i am fortunate to know and to call my friends. it's a privilege to be able to honor and thanks them here on the senate floor for their fortitude, their determination, and their perseverance. and i remain unwavering in my commitment to help today's leaders, as we continue to improve ancsa and ensure that the federal government upholds its promise to alaska native people. now, we say around here all the time that there's no law that we've written and passed that is perfect, and ancsa is certainly no exception. it is really a living document, if you will, still changing, still evolving. there are gaps. we recognize that. there are shortcomings. and we still have unfinished business, important issues that we have to to resolve. one of these is recent, unfortunately, and it does not involve amending ancsa, but instead it calls for flexibility for the unique corporations it created. so ar the -- after the covid pandemic struck our country, those of us in congress came together, seeking to pass the cares act to provide relief across the spectrum, and as part of that, as part of that, and i was really very pleased to be able to be part of that evident that was able to dedicate significant funding for tribes and tribal entities, it was $ 8 billion that was dedicated for tribes, tribal entities, including a.n.c.'s. but the a.n.c.'s eligibility for that funding was quickly challenged, despite the very clear intention here in congress. the case ultimately went to the supreme court. it wasn't decided until june 25 of this year, when they ultimately prevailed. so as a result of that litigation, a.n.c.'s received their allocations under that cares funding, but they only recently received this. they got the litigation through, they received their allocation, but very late, but know we've got a new problem, because the new problem says that that cares act money needs to be spent by december 31. a matter of a couple weeks. that's just not right. that's not fair here. it's clearly not long enough to be able to responsibly utilize these very important funds, and it's really not fair as a result of the litigation that they faced. and so, the cockial delegation, senator sullivan, congressman young and i are seeking to extend the deadline through the end of next year. we're saying fair is fair. a.n.c.'s should have the time that they need and that others had. and while the senate has agreed to pass a broader bill that includes this extension, it's stalled over on the house side and really has left us with no clear path forward, even at this very late hour. so that is something that i'm asking my colleagues and the administration for, for support in gaining this flexibility. another top priority for me is something that was left out of ancsa all those years ago. five communities in southeast alaska were missing from its text, and therefore unable to create what we called urban corporations. today, this is a 50-year injustice for these five communities. alaska native communities of haynes, ketchikam, rangel, petersburg and tenickey. i've had the privilege to live in rangel and to be born in ketchikan. these are communities pretty close to my heart. the situation in terms of being left out was challenging enough. it's not made easier by their location in the tongass national forest. but i would remind the senate that they and their ancestors lived in this area. they took care of these lands long before the federal government came along and made a designation of a national forest. that nearly all of their region has since been taken and classified as a federal forest is no reason to refuse to acknowledge and work with us on this. so, i've recently reintroduced legislation to allow those five southeast communities to receive their rightful land entitlements under ancsa. i would urge my colleagues, take a look at this, recognize that this is a matter of the federal government making good on its promise to thousands of alaska natives. i would ask that you join me and senator sullivan and congressman young as we work to advance this bill into law, as we again continue to address unfulfilled promises within airvetiona. a third matter is a provision in ancsa that quite honestly is outdated, no longer needed. congress, in trying to do the right thing, required village corporations to take a portion of the lands that they received under ancsa and give them to the state of alaska to hold in trust for future community needs. so, fast forward some 50 years. many of these lands are simply being held in trusts now, even though they are not needed for municipal purposes, and quite likely will never be. it's just time to end that requirement. enable the village corporations to receive these lands back, if they so choose. we also have to remember, this is a land settlement, but it's not fully implemented. and keep in mind, it's been 50 years now, so still it's a land settlement that hasn't been implemented fully after 50 years. a total of 5.5 million acres are still under interim conveyance. another 1.5 million acres remain unconveyed from the original entitlement. so, we've got to provide the resources to the department of interior to complete this very important work. there's at least four more issues that we need to help resolve as well that i will mention. this first one here on this list is really concerning to me, and it's actually really very devastating when you think about it. this is the matter of contaminated lands, contaminated lands that this is not only not going away, but getting worse. it really pains me to say, but significant lands in alaska, including formerly used defense sites, were contaminated. the federal government new they were contaminated, but they were still conveyed to the a.n.c.'s as contaminated lands. and the government's saying, okay, this is part of your land settlement, so we're going to give you these lands, but you can't use these lands, because they're contaminated. and there are horrible consequences that we're seeing to this. we've got clusters of illnesses, cancer. we just had a report that was presented to the alaska federation of natives convention just this past week. but this is causing real suffering, true, true consequences, death in these communities. and it's no fault of the people who live there. and again, received these lands in settlement from the federal government. it is a federal responsibility for us to take care of this. we've got a plan. we have a plan in the sense that we have identified where these contaminated lands are, but what we need is the comprehensive plan in terms of the action. what we're actually going to do to clean up the land and make it right and make it right as soon as possible. another issue that we need to resolve is the issue of afterborns. the day that ancsa before law, december 18, 1971, that was kind of an arbitrary deadline for alaska native people to be included in its benefits. so if a native person was alive on the date of enactment, december 18, 1971, they were included as an eligible shareholder in the ancsa corporation that aligned with their traditional tribal home leappedz. -- homelands. but if a native person, even from the same family, same area, same family, but they're born after december 18, 1971, they were not included, and they did not receive shares in any native corporation. what you had, it created two distinct classes of native people. you had original shareholders and nonshareholder descendants, they call them after borns, who were effective disenfranchised from the benefits congress intended for them. there was a past amendment to ancsa that dealt directly with this issue, but didn't sufficiently solve this problem. this was an effort that we tried several years ago, a decade or so. congress has allowed ancsa corporations to open enrollment to descendants through an affirmative vote of their current shareholders. as a result, what we've seen is about five regional corporations have opened enrollment, and about five of the more than 200 village corporations have done the same. but unfortunately, so many of these small village corporations that want to open enrollment simply can't afford this process. it's a relatively complicated process. this a problem we're probably going to have to address legislatively, not by directing alaska natives on what to do, but by providing some support and resources so that they can make that choice at their discretion. one of the more significant promises made to alaska native people dealt with the issue of subsistence. in alaska, subsistence is hunting, it's fishing, it's gathering, it is inextricably tried to native culture. it's food security for places where grocery stores simply don't exist, or if they do exist the food is so expensive that the average family can't afford it. this is, again, something where we need to find fair solutions for alaska native subsistence rights. and the last issue i will bring up today is, again, something too significant not to acknowledge. ancsa was meant to be a fair and just settlement, accomplished rapidly, with certainty and conformity with the real economic and social needs of native people, without litigation. congress wrote that into ancsa itself. and yet, in reality, ancsa severed alaska tribes from the tribal land base. while many alaska native people are owners and native corporations that manage native traditional homelands. alaska tribal governments were not a consideration in the law. alaska tribes led to the creation of ancsa, were left without a viable resource stream to effectively govern. they too need tools and resources to create opportunities, and that's also an issue that we must consider going forward. but all of this, mr. president, all of this requires education and understanding. that's going to be key. and that has been, unfortunately, lacking, severely lacking, as we have seen repeatedly misguided attacks from members here in congress against ancsa and its corporations. i will tell you, it's hard to express how frustrating that is, how infuriating these attacks truly are. but one additional benefit of the 50th anniversary is the opportunity that it provides us to help congress, to help the administration, to help really the american public understand, understand ancsa and the promises that were made within that settlement act. alaska pacific university and the wilson center's polar institute have held a series of events that are free for anyone who wants to learn and understand more about ancsa. the ted stevens foundation is developing a documentary on this. indian country today, first alaskans magazine, the "anchorage daily news," among others, have long published long form articles exploring anchorage's history, its meaning, impact and future. i would encourage folks to take a look at that. i think it is also important to remember that while ancsa's passage ushered in a period of self-determination and self-governance for alaska native communities, it provided opportunities for these communities to really look to the future. in short, ancsa was designed to address the past by looking to the future. at the annual meeting of the alaska federation of natives which i mentioned just took place earlier this week, i reflected and recognized the generation of alaska native leaders who fought for passage of ancsa. it was their efforts that helped pave the way for the many alaska native youth who may be watching back home in alaska or across the country, maybe even around the world. i want them, i want them to know about the work that was done to pass this historic law and how it is appreciated. and as i reflect here today on the passage of this important law, i'm hopeful about what ancsa will represent for our alaska native youth in the future. my colleague, senator sullivan, and i have introduced a resolution to ensure that the u.s. senate recognizes the 50th anniversary of ancsa. our resolution acknowledges the incredible accomplishments that alaska native people have made through their a.n.c.'s over these past 50 years. there are many successes to acknowledge and to celebrate, but in its text we also reflect on the work that is left ahead, the promises left unfilled, the promises the federal government has made to alaska native people that must be honored. so i thank senator sullivan for standing with me to submit this important resolution which acknowledges the tenacity of the alaska native people and the success of a.n.c.'s over the past 50 years. and i know that the dean of the house, congressman young, joins with us in acknowledging this golden anniversary. so, mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that the text of our resolution on ancsa's 50th anniversary appear in the "congressional record" following my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: thank you, mr. president. i would certainly encourage all those who have had an opportunity to hear my comments -- i know my colleague, senator sullivan, is going to speak later as well, but just take a bit of time to better understand this foundational law for alaska natives' self-determination. and with that, mr. president, i thank you, and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i'm here on the senate floor now for the 21st time, specifically to oppose president biden's sweeping vaccine mandates. i've introduced over a dozen bills to one way or another limit, clarify, or counteract the mandates. every time i've come to ask the senate to pass what should, frankly, be uncontroversial matters, one of my colleagues or another from the other side of the aisle has come to object. this is unfortunate. it's unfortunate really for a number of reasons. these mandates, while currently being challenged in court in a number of jurisdictions, show the terrible power that even the threat of a vaccine mandate can wield. businesses across the country are suspending, punishing, and firing employees who haven't had the covid shot. the threat of the mandate is making it harder for everyday american families just to put food on the table and to do so moreover in an increasingly difficult economic times. these are not our enemies. these are not people to be feared. these are not people to shun or loathe entirely as the mandate seems to suggest. no, no. these are our friends and our neighbors. these are mothers and fathers. these are people who, like far too many americans, are just struggling to get by. and i'm going to continue to fight for them to protect them, because they understand something that president biden has yet to accept, even though deep down i know he does know it, and that is this isn't right. it's not right for him to do. it's not right constitutionally for about a dozen reasons, but it's also just not right morally. it's a morally unacceptable proposition to suggest that someone should get fired just because they don't conform to presidential medical orthodoxy. it's immoral to tell someone that their ability to put food on the table for their children depends on whether they get a shot, a shot that they may or may not want, a shot that may or may not conflict with their religious or sincerely held beliefs, that might be contra indicated by one or more conditions, resulting in their doctor advising them not to get the shot. this is not something that anyone should do. in fact, the american people agree, according to a recent axios poll, only 14% americans, 14 out of every 100 americans agrees with the position of the president of the united states that if someone doesn't get the shot, that they should be fired. i imagine it's even fewer than that, and 14 out of 100 isn't very many to begin with. but i'm pretty sure it's even fewer than that, far fewer to say it's okay for one person within the federal government to decide to fire everyone who doesn't comply within the government and also to tell private employers that they'll receive crippling company-destroying fines that no company, not even the wealthiest out there, could live with if they don't fire every one of their employees or otherwise take adverse action against them, declining to take the shot. it's not okay. in this effort, i have, to be sure, been supremely clear. i am not in any way against the covid-19 vaccinations. quite to the contrary, i have been vaccinated. i've encouraged people to seek out all of the relevant information and be vaccinated. i believe that the covid-19 vaccines are keeping i countless americans safe from the harm threatened by the covid-19 virus. this is different than that. as a matter of fact, there's an undercut that can't offset the fact that this mandate is pushing government control beyond the constitutional limits and into the private decisions of the american people. that's why i'm against all these mandates for all age groups. and that's why i've document senate floor repeated -- why i've come to the senate floor repeatedly to help and to call on my colleagues and president biden himself to end this madness once and for all, to end it before it's too late, to end it before irreparable harm is inflicted on those who for whatever reason can't or are otherwise inclined not to comply with his directions. i've even offered a bill, one that should be unusually, uniquely uncontroversial. but even that one met objection. it was a simple reaffirmation of parental rights that our government has respected and honored and even protected from the beginning. my parental consent for vaccination act would simply require that any covid-19 vaccine mandate issued by the federal government -- and to be clear, it shouldn't be issuing any at all. but any of them that it happens to issue must be a mandate that includes a requirement that informed parental consent be provided before the shot can be administered to a minor. this one is so far afield from the broader question of whether we should have these mandates at all, the slightly narrower question of whether the president of the united states should administer them. it really should not be controversial. allow me to put this issue in some context here. parental consent is required for all sorts of things. parental consent, as every parent with school-age children knows, is required for field trips. parental consent is required for pretty much all extracurricular activities. for that matter, it's required for many in-class activities. parental consent is required before most schools can administer so much as a tylenol or a baby aspirin to a child. everyone knows that. none of that is happening without parental consent. and that is, to be sure, the right approach. it's as it should be, despite what some candidates have said in some recent political campaigns, parents should be informed and involved in their children's education, and certainly in their child's health decisions. in matters of medical treatment. parents, it's important to remember, are simply better equipped to make these decisions. parents know their children, and they know their children's medical history. parents know their moral, their religious, and their health requirements that are in many cases unique to their family, certainly something that no government and no school can keep track of in the same way that a government or a school could. parents also love their children. that's important here. and parents, because they love their children, they have their best, their children's best interest at heart when they make decisions affecting them. government can't do any of those things. it certainly can't do any of those things anywhere close to as well as a parent could. and the reason for that, mr. president, is fairly simple. it's because government doesn't have arms with which to embrace children. government doesn't have a heart with which to love children. government doesn't even have eyes to see or ears to hear, because government of course when reduced to its essence, when we really define it as what it is, it's simply force. it's legally authorized violent. thank heaven that god and the law have always assigned primary care of their children to parents and not to government. government is just the official actual or threatened use of force. we need government. it's also one of the many reasons why we've got to be careful with it. just like other things that we rely on in so many ways. things like electricity, like moving water, like fire, they're all necessary to our day-to-day lives, and yet when left uncontrolled, they're dangerous and quickly become fatal. when we don't exercise de caution. this, of course, has been acknowledged, it's been written about widely for many, many centuries, even centuries before the founding of our republic, and it's been acknowledged since the very earliest days of our republic. george washington himself warned the people about this, warning that government is itself -- dangerous. it's why we have a constitution. if men were angels, we wouldn't need government. if we had access to angels to run our government, as james madison described in federalist 51, then we wouldn't have to worry about government abusing its power and we wouldn't need all these rules, but we're not angels. men and women are not angels and we don't have access to angels to run our government and so we have to have rules governing the use of government. and it's for our own safety. nowhere is this more important than with respect to our children. that's where we can really see laid bare the essential core facts of what government is, which is the actual or threatened use of coercive force. now, i also thank heaven above that god didn't assign the anonymous masses on the internet to care for children. the pressure chi
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