Sen. Chris Murphy slammed GOP legislation as "theater"
Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked two bills from Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) that would have used COVID-19 stimulus funds to bolster school security and mental health resources for students.
The Securing Our Schools Act, which was cosponsored by Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), would double the number of police officers in public, charter, and private schools, strengthen physical security measures like alarms and locks, and put thousands of mental health professionals in public schools. The Protect Our Children’s Schools Act would fund that effort, appropriating billions of dollars in unspent education-related COVID funding. Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) objected on the Senate floor to both, killing the legislation after Cruz sought unanimous consent.
The bills are the latest school safety measures Senate Democrats have blocked since the deadly shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, in May. Days after the shooting, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) axed a bill that would have tasked Homeland Security with collecting school safety data and providing recommendations to law enforcement.
The Cruz bills would have allotted $25 billion to place security officers and mental health workers in schools and tripled FEMA’s grant program for school security. Cruz’s bills would have barred schools that teach critical race theory or advocate for abortion from accessing the funds.
Murphy said he was in legislative talks with a more "serious legislator," Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), about a similar school security bill. An aide in Lankford’s office told the Washington Free Beacon that Murphy was mistaken and the two senators are collaborating on a different education bill. Lankford cosponsored Cruz’s school security bill when it was introduced in July.
"Schools should have the flexibility to access unspent COVID funds to strengthen school safety," Lankford said in a press release at the time. There is $135 billion in leftover education-related COVID relief.
metmike: In reading the story at several sites, I wondered why democrats would block such a wonderful bill, then read this: Cruz’s bills would have barred schools that teach critical race theory or advocate for abortion from accessing the funds.
Just another reason to NEVER trust Ted Cruz! Regardless of whether I agree with him or not on the underlined/bold sentence above.
To introduce a bill with that in it, knowing with 100% certainty that democrats would never go for such a ludicrous thing and there actually would be no way to even monitor whether a school was meeting those requirements, shows the he's completely full of doo doo.
Just trying to showboat with political theater intended to make him look good (as if he's introducing a great bill) and democrats never intending to work with them.
If he really was serious, those items would NEVER be in the bill. They have absolutely ZERO to do with school safety.
He just wasted even more tax payer dollars being manipulative. Trying to get attention from his base and votes.......but that's what politicians do for a living.
see what your words are saying and they might temporarily even make some sense. However you have been splitting far too many babies lately. What would you have Cruz do? you know how many millions the feds send to gov run school systems from sea to sea. And you know who has drilled their way into the budgets of these school systems. Yes CRT and the abortion activists. You think absent these 2 additions Cruz might of been pillared in every lib media outlet across the nation as a huge supporter of crt and abortion? As Truman used to say, its pretty easy to be a farmer while sitting behind a desk pushing a pencil {paraphrase}, same could be said of a Senator with nearly every media outlet taking a crazy liberal, radical stance with every report.
What would you have Cruz do?
Propose a serious bill that doesn't have the extreme right elements in it, totally against what democrats stand for!
Only somebody viewing this from the extreme right's tunnel vision would not see how blatantly obvious this is.........and that's who he targeted with the bill.....people gullible enough to fall for his divisive trick.
This was extremely dishonest and entirely designed to target the extreme right, who will believe and cheer for it.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/77011/#77871
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/77011/#86827
The democrats, appear to be applying the lesson in Tim's thread..........Cruz being the donkey in this version........and trying to bait the Tiger(democrats) into having pointless arguing over his silly bill that doesn't stand a snowballs chance of ever passing because of the extreme right additions that completely negate the headline items addressing school safety.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/88894/#88921
Never thought we would get to see a real world example of it so quickly but then, one only has to look around us to see it everywhere.
Thanks for sharpening our awareness skills, Tim!
"totally against what democrats stand for" Gee, thanks MM for clearing that up. Here all this time I could of sworn that des were pushing CRT and abortion. How could I have not seen they not anywhere near those issues. Next you will explain how the boarder is secure and Kamala cured that problem months ago.
a local school can always work at improving security at their school buildings, whether congress does anything or not.
Exactly right bear!
as volunteer chess coach at 5 different schools, I get to experience 5 different methods of screening visitors.
4 of them won’t even let you into the locked building.
you hit a call button outside the front door If you want to get in. This signals one of the secretaries to respond. She looks at you on the outdoor camera and asks why you want to be let in.
they recognize me and unlock the door. Tight away.
not so with strangers, who have to provide a good reason to get in. Not sure how many people have been rejected but from my observation, they take the process very seriously.
im guessing the system would likely thwart a shooters attempt to get in, though a potential intruder could be convincing with a fake story and might get in.
all other doors are locked.
after they let you in, then you go to the front office which is right there at the entrance.k
they require your drivers license at one school And print an ID.
they require most people to check in. As chess coach, no need for me to go through that process.
why wouldn’t all schools be doing this?