WASHINGTON — Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) announced that Marquise McGill will accompany him to this year’s State of the Union address. McGill is a Washington native who grew up in the southeast corner of the city. He works in the Senate as part of the AbilityOne Program. He and Kennedy both work in the Russell Senate Office Building.

“Marquise brings an incredible attitude and ability to the Senate. He and his colleagues make so much of what we do here possible. Marquise has already distinguished himself as an outstanding member of his team and hopes to one day run his own custodial business. It’s my honor to attend the State of the Union address with someone who has invested in his community and who helps keep the Senate running smoothly,” said Kennedy.

McGill has more than three years of experience working for Goodwill of Greater Washington. He began his role in the Senate in 2020, supporting senators and their staff as a custodian. A father of three, McGill says his children are his motivation for working hard and providing for his family. 

The AbilityOne Program is an independent federal initiative that helps people with disabilities attain meaningful employment. The AbilityOne Program employs roughly 40,000 individuals—including more than 2,500 veterans—who are blind or otherwise disabled.

This year marks the fourth time Kennedy has invited a Senate custodian as his guest for the president’s State of the Union address. This is also the first year that senators have been able to invite guests since the coronavirus pandemic began.

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today introduced the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act to require district attorneys (DAs) to report violent crimes that they fail to charge criminals with committing. Prosecutors who fail to report these decisions risk losing priority funding for their districts.

“Criminals are victimizing innocent Americans, and woke prosecutors are letting them do it over and over again. Louisianians and all Americans deserve to know when their district attorneys refuse to stand up for victims. Our bill would require prosecutors to report what crimes they fail to prosecute so that Americans can better hold their public servants accountable,” said Kennedy.

The legislation responds to a nation-wide trend of DAs who are declining to prosecute murder, aggravated assault, robbery, rape, burglary, motor vehicle theft, arson and other serious crimes.

Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) have cosponsored the bill.

“As communities throughout the nation continue to deal with disturbingly high levels of violent crime, I’m proud to support this legislation to increase transparency for soft-on-crime prosecutors and hold jurisdictions accountable for allowing criminals who are charged with gun-related crimes to get out of jail without posting cash bail,” said Thune.

“With crime on the rise in Democrat-led cities across the nation, it is imperative that these Soros-backed prosecutors work, do their jobs and get these violent offenders off our streets, instead of allowing career criminals to run rampant in our community. Catch-and-release is enough of a disaster on the Texas-Mexico border. The last thing we need is to institute it in our courts. I’m proud to stand with Sen. Kennedy and our colleagues to demand transparency about this abdication of professional responsibility,” said Cruz.

The bill would apply to state and local prosecutors in the 50 U.S. cities in which crime is most on the rise—including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and New Orleans. Requiring DA’s to publicly report crimes that go unprosecuted will help the Justice Department better determine which jurisdictions are allowing defendants to avoid criminal penalties for serious crimes. For example, jurisdictions with a formal policy that eliminates cash bail for offenses involving a firearm would lose certain federal grant funding.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) is leading companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

“Over the past two years, we've seen a disturbing trend in big-city district attorneys working to keep dangerous criminals on our streets rather than behind bars. Look no further than my city of New York where Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg released a 'Day One' memo initially directing his staff to not prosecute certain crimes, downgrade other felony charges filed by police, and no longer seek sentences of life without parole. The same type of woke policies have been enacted by progressive DAs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, and voters have had enough. With prosecutors refusing to prosecute and governors only enabling their leniency, Congress has a responsibility to step in and arm the public with the information they need to make informed decisions at the ballot box,” said Malliotakis.

In recent years, a multimillion-dollar project to replace effective policing in major cities with practices inspired by the defund-the-police movement has helped elect DAs who repeatedly refuse to prosecute violent crime.

The bill’s text is available here.

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Watch Kennedy’s comments here.

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today spoke on the Senate floor about improving education in Louisiana schools.

“Louisiana, like all of our states, is working as hard as we can to improve K through 12, elementary and secondary education. . . . Our problem in America is elementary and secondary education, and it’s frustrating, Mr. President. We've made some improvements but not nearly enough. . . . Now here's our problem today: Some years ago we started grading our schools, Mr. President. We grade our schools in Louisiana, our elementary and secondary schools, for two reasons. First, because we want education quality. Number two, transparency,” said Kennedy.

“But here's the problem: 41 percent of our elementary and middle schools get A's and B's. I think that's probably pretty accurate. We’re going to get that number up, those grades up. But about 41 percent of our elementary and middle schools grade A or B. Seventy percent of our high schools grade A or B. Something's not meshing here. I wish I could say that 70 percent of our high schools were A and B schools, but we all know in Louisiana that they are not,” he continued.

“It's not just money. . . . In Louisiana, we spend about $12,000 per year, per child. Now that's a lot of money in my state, given the standard cost of living. By way of comparison, Florida spends about $10,000,” explained Kennedy. 

“Let's work together. Let's look reality in the eye and accept it. Let's understand that we need a new methodology to try to grade our schools. Let's look reality in the eye and accept the fact that our parents deserve to know the quality of school that their kids are attending. And let's come up with a new system that is accurate but that is fair to everybody. And let's stop blaming people and regretting yesterday and start creating tomorrow. Because . . . the future of my state is education. It's not the price of oil. It’s not the unemployment rate. It's not who the senators are. It’s education,” Kennedy concluded.

View Kennedy’s full speech here.

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today joined Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) in introducing the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. The bill would allow individuals with concealed carry privileges in their home states to exercise those rights in any other state that allows concealed carry, so long as one exercises those rights within the limits of each respective state’s laws.

“The Second Amendment helps safeguard all of Americans’ constitutional rights. This bill would affirm Americans’ fundamental liberties while respecting individual states’ rights to establish their own laws,” said Kennedy. 

“I’m proud to support law-abiding gun owners across America with this commonsense legislation that would let them concealed carry in all states that allow it. This legislation strengthens two of our most fundamental constitutional protections—the Second Amendment’s right of citizens to keep and bear arms and the Tenth Amendment’s right of states to make laws best-suited for their residents—and I’m grateful to 44 of my Republican Senate colleagues for joining me on this important bill,” said Cornyn.

This legislation would:

• Allow individuals with concealed carry privileges in their home states to exercise those rights in any other state that has concealed carry laws.
• Treat state-issued concealed carry permits like drivers’ licenses, allowing an individual to use his or her home-state license to drive in another state while abiding by the speed limit of whatever state that person is in.
• Protect state sovereignty by refusing to establish a national standard for concealed carry. 

Both the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the National Rifle Association have endorsed this legislation.