[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 309 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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116th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. RES. 309
Designating September 2019 as ``National Voting Rights Month''.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 12, 2019
Mr. Wyden (for himself, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Booker, Mr.
Brown, Ms. Cantwell, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Coons, Ms. Duckworth, Mr. Durbin,
Ms. Harris, Ms. Hirono, Mr. Jones, Mr. Kaine, Mr. Markey, Mr. Menendez,
Mr. Merkley, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Sanders, Ms. Smith, Mr. Udall, and Mr.
Van Hollen) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to
the Committee on the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Designating September 2019 as ``National Voting Rights Month''.
Whereas voting is one of the single most important rights that can be exercised
in a democracy;
Whereas, over the course of history, various voter suppression laws in the
United States have hindered, and even prohibited, certain individuals
and groups from exercising the right to vote;
Whereas, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, Native Americans and people
who were born to United States citizens abroad, people who spoke a
language other than English, and people who were formerly subjected to
slavery were denied full citizenship and prevented from voting by
English literacy tests;
Whereas, since the 1870s, minority groups such as African Americans in the South
have suffered from the oppressive effects of Jim Crow laws designed to
prevent political, economic, and social mobility;
Whereas African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and other
underrepresented voters were subject to violence, poll taxes, literacy
tests, all-White primaries, property ownership tests, and grandfather
clauses;
Whereas members of the aforementioned groups and others are currently, in some
cases, subject to intimidation, voter roll purges, bans on former
prisoners from voting, and financial barriers that act effectively as
modern day poll taxes;
Whereas, in 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301
et seq.) to protect the right of African Americans and other
traditionally disenfranchised groups to vote, among other reasons;
Whereas, in 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated section 4
of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, dismantling the preclearance formula
provision in that Act that protected voters in States and localities
that historically have suppressed the right of minorities to vote;
Whereas, since the invalidation of the preclearance formula provision of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, gerrymandered districts in many States have
gone unchallenged or have become less likely to be invalidated by the
courts;
Whereas these gerrymandered districts have been found to have a discriminatory
impact on traditionally disenfranchised minorities through tactics that
include ``cracking'', diluting the voting power of minorities across
many districts, and ``packing'', concentrating minority voters' power in
one district to reduce their voting power in other districts;
Whereas the courts have found the congressional and, in some cases, State
legislative district maps, in Texas, North Carolina, Florida,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin to be gerrymandered districts that
were created to favor some groups over others;
Whereas the decision of the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S.
529 (2013), calls on Congress to update the formula in the Voting Rights
Act of 1965;
Whereas some form of a restrictive voting law has been instituted in 22 States
since 2013;
Whereas these restrictive voting laws encompass cutbacks in early voting, voter
roll purges, placement of faulty equipment in minority communities,
requirement of photo identification--the procurement of which amounts to
a modern day poll tax, and the elimination of same-day registration;
Whereas these changes could outright disenfranchise or make voting much more
difficult for more than 80,000,000 minority, elderly, poor, and disabled
voters, among other groups;
Whereas, in 2016, discriminatory laws in North Carolina, Wisconsin, North
Dakota, and Texas were ruled to violate voters' rights and overturned by
the courts;
Whereas there is much more work to be done to ensure all citizens of the United
States have the right to vote;
Whereas National Voter Registration Day is September 25; and
Whereas September 2019 would be an appropriate month to designate as ``National
Voting Rights Month'': Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) designates September 2019 as ``National Voting Rights
Month'';
(2) encourages all people in the United States to uphold
the right of every citizen to exercise the sacred and
fundamental right to vote;
(3) encourages Congress to pass--
(A) the For the People Act of 2019 (S. 949 and H.R.
1 of the 116th Congress), to increase voters' access to
the ballot, prohibit the use of deceptive practices to
intimidate voters, end gerrymandering, create automatic
voter registration, limit the power of restrictive
voter identification laws, make critical investments in
election infrastructure and technology, and address
corruption in campaign finance and ethics;
(B) the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019 (S.
561 and H.R. 4 of the 116th Congress), to restore the
protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C.
10301 et seq.) that prohibit discriminatory voting
practices, remove barriers to voting, and provide
protections for minority voters in States with a
history of voting discrimination;
(C) the Securing America's Federal Elections Act,
or the SAFE Act (S. 2238 and H.R. 2722 of the 116th
Congress), to provide funding for States to improve the
administration of elections, including by enhancing
technology and election security, replacing antiquated
voting systems, and meeting new standards for
administering elections; and
(D) other voting rights legislation that seeks to
advance voting rights and protect elections in the
United States;
(4) recommends that public schools and universities in the
United States develop an academic curriculum that educates
students about--
(A) the importance of voting, how to register to
vote, where to vote, and the different forms of voting;
(B) the history of voter suppression in the United
States before the passage of the Voting Rights Act of
1965;
(C) current issues relating to laws passed after
1965 that restrict the right to vote; and
(D) any actions taken by State and Federal
Government officials since passage of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 that have created barriers to the exercise
of the right to vote;
(5) encourages the United States Postal Service to issue a
special Fannie Lou Hamer stamp during the month of September to
remind people in the United States that ordinary citizens
risked their lives, marched, and participated in the great
democracy of the United States so that all citizens would have
the fundamental right to vote; and
(6) invites Congress to allocate the requisite funds for
public service announcements on television, radio, newspapers,
magazines, social media, billboards, buses, and other forms of
media to remind people in the United States when elections are
being held and to urge people to get out and vote.
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