[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 309 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

<DOC>






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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