Of all the things that have happened in my life, her
     turning out so well is the highlight of it by far.

  It is only fitting that his sister Darline will serve in his place.
We extend her a warm welcome to the Senate like Senator Graham did with
so many of us.
  It is almost as if Lindsey and President Trump had one more call
after the call that night where they talked. Lindsey had gotten back
from Ukraine, and the President called him or he called the President.
They talked on the phone, and it was shortly after that that Lindsey
had his heart attack and died.
  But it is almost like they had one more call--one more call--where
Lindsey was able to call President Trump again or President Trump was
able to call Lindsey and they talked about, you know, who should
replace Lindsey during that period before the election when the people
of South Carolina will elect their next Senator to replace Lindsey, and
they decided on Darline.
  And how fitting. How appropriate. So big thanks to President Trump
for recommending to Governor McMaster that he appoint Darline. We are
so pleased to have her here, and it is so fitting and appropriate.
  My wife Mikey and I are praying for Lindsey and for his whole family.
I have to say that my wife Mikey was always a big Lindsey fan. One
time, we are at dinner or something, and she just tells Lindsey how
much I like and respect Lindsey.
  I said to her: Why did you do that?
  She goes: Well, because you do. You really like him. You respect him.
  So I just said: Yes, I know I do, but he is my buddy. You are not
supposed to tell your buddy that; they are just supposed to know it.
  But it is true. I think we all did, both sides of the aisle.
  We will miss him incredibly. The country, the State of South Carolina
will miss him. Our country will miss Lindsey Graham and his incredible
service.
  May God bless Lindsey and his entire family.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota for
those kind words about our mutual friend. We are both going to miss
him.
  I have given a tribute to him today in the committee and partially on
the floor, but it is still hard to imagine the Senate without Lindsey.
  (The remarks of Mr. DURBIN pertaining to the introduction of S. 4979
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. DURBIN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a
colloquy with the Senator from North Carolina Senator Tillis.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                    Bipartisan Safer Communities Act

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, 4 years ago, Congress passed our
legislative response to one of the deadliest school shootings in
American history. It happened in Uvalde, TX, at Robb Elementary School.
Nineteen innocent children and two adults--teachers--lost their lives
that day.
  It was a devastating--a devastating--occurrence. Unfortunately, it
was not

an isolated event. Americans around the country, though, joined in the
suffering of these families' experience as they mourned the loss of
their loved ones.
  Flags at Federal buildings and military installations were lowered to
halfstaff. We all knew we wanted to do whatever we could do to prevent
something like this from happening again if there was anything that we
could actually do legislatively.
  The much harder question was, What would that look like?
  In the days that followed, we heard from many Americans--Texans,
North Carolinians, and folks all around the country--saying that no
parent should ever have to send their child to school wondering will
that child be safe, and no child should have to go to school wondering
if they were going to be a victim of a mass shooting.
  We knew that whatever we did, it would not bring back those teachers
and innocent children from the act of pure evil that unfolded on May
24, 2022. But we knew that--Senator Tillis, Senator Sinema, Senator
Murphy, and I took on the task of trying to come up with a bill that
would actually make a difference, that would save lives.
  But we knew we had to do it consistent with the Second Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution, but we felt like we could make some progress and
save lives.
  As negotiations continued, there was pressure mounting from some
corners of this Chamber to do things that maybe sounded pretty good,
but they wouldn't actually change the results or maybe they would be
unconstitutional in depriving law-abiding citizens of their Second
Amendment rights.
  During the meetings that we had together, I think we concluded that
if we actually wanted to be successful in doing something that would
make a difference and save lives, that we couldn't just try to do
something that perhaps was a good press release or might make the
evening news; we actually had to do something that would be meaningful
and that would result in saving lives.
  I have long been a champion of Second Amendment rights. That is
probably no surprise. Texans believe in the Second Amendment. But some
of these proposals, obviously, were unacceptable to me, personally, but
they, as I said, failed to address the problems that we have seen in
these school shootings in a way that would be meaningful.
  The best solution, in my view, was that we needed to find some way to
come to grips with the mental health crisis in our country and
particularly that affecting young people and, in this case, in the wake
of COVID and the isolation many of these young people had.
  But we also knew that we needed to be narrow and specifically tailor
policy changes that would save those lives. So we worked together and
passed a bill called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which passed
the Senate on June 23 and was signed into law June 25 of 2022, 32 days
after the shooting.
  Now, the Senate does not ordinarily operate at that sort of speed, I
can assure you, as we all know, but we wrote this law carefully and
deliberately to ensure no law-abiding citizen's Second Amendment rights
would be impaired.
  To be plain, if you didn't suffer from a mental illness or you
weren't a criminal, you would not be affected by this law. That was
true then, and it is true today.
  What this bill did do is made a historic investment in mental health
and school safety and commonsense measures to prevent dangerous
individuals from being a harm to themselves and others.
  Texas, like all the States, has received significant amounts of
money; in the case of Texas, hundreds of millions of dollars from this
law--more than $312 million, to date, to strengthen our mental health
care and school hardening--to make it more difficult for violent
individuals to attack soft targets like schools typically have been but
no more.
  Universities use these resources to partner with local school
districts to provide training for mental health professionals to
support students, and school districts have used these resources to
upgrade their security systems, to implement threat alert systems, and
improve emergency response plans.
  I saw some of these firsthand when I visited R.L. Paschal High School
in Fort Worth, which received more than $350,000 for specialized
emergency radios and safety upgrades.
  The BSCA, as it is called, also expanded certified community
behavioral health clinics around the country, which has allowed mental
health clinics to expand their coverage to include not only mental
health but substance abuse disorders.
  We have all come to be aware of the fact that we simply have not
treated or provided the resources for people suffering from mental
health challenges that are necessary to help them not only get better
but prevent them from descending into self-harm or harm to others.
  There are now more than 500 community-based mental health centers
operating in 46 States, and additional States have added to the CCBHC
Demonstration Program recently announced by the Health and Human
Services Secretary, Secretary Kennedy, that was directly linked to this
law that we passed 4 years ago.
  Now, of course, there has been a lot of misunderstanding living in
the world we live in with social media and officeholders and would-be
officeholders running in political campaigns. There is a lot of
misunderstanding about what this law did and what it did not do.
  For example, some have described this bill as a gun control law,
which it is not. So, today, together with my colleague--our colleague--
Senator Tillis of North Carolina, who is a great partner in this
legislation, we want to address some of the widespread misconceptions
about the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and just set the record
straight.
  One of the things I heard most in the recent campaign I ran in was
that we had passed a red flag law which would make it possible for an
aggrieved partner or spouse or family member or maybe even a neighbor
to basically turn in somebody and have their firearms confiscated
without due process of law.
  We decided upfront that although some States did have red flag laws,
that No. 1, it was important that there be appropriate due process
requirements before they can access any of the resources in this law
and, secondly, that there not be a national red flag law--leave this up
to the States.
  The truth is, the BSCA actually makes it harder to implement red flag
laws because you can't do so and access this money unless you enhance
the due process protections that are necessary to protect what is a
constitutional right.
  Our legislation created this due process framework that I know you
will hear more about from Senator Tillis, but I knew that my State,
Texas, would never pass a State red flag law, and the last thing I was
going to do was to support or embrace a red flag law, national law,
that would preempt Texas law. So we wanted to make sure that the
funding that was available was available for crisis intervention
programs, veterans courts, mental health courts--just to use a couple
of examples--that did not have those red flag laws while making sure
those States that did could not gain access to this money unless they
provided an enhanced due process procedure.
  So it is false to argue that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act
created an incentive for more States to pass new red flag laws, and the
statistics bear it out.
  Only 4 percent of the total money appropriated was obligated to red
flag-related activities--4 percent--in States with existing red flag
laws, and those States now had to comply with the law so a stricter due
process standard applied.
  The vast majority of BSCA funds have gone, instead, to State mental
health programs, veterans courts, as I mentioned, crisis intervention,
school safety measures. The only States to implement a new red flag law
were two States that already had begun the process to pass one before
the BSCA passed.
  So the BSCA--Bipartisan Safer Communities Act--did not cause or leave
any State to pass new red flag laws. What we did is made it harder for
those laws to be abused in those States that had them by providing for
this enhanced level of due process protection of this Second Amendment
constitutional right.