[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 695 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

<DOC>






116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
S. RES. 695

    Designating September 2020 as ``National Voting Rights Month''.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           September 15, 2020

Mr. Wyden (for himself, Mr. Merkley, Mr. Kaine, Mr. Jones, Mr. Bennet, 
Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Carper, Mr. Markey, Ms. Klobuchar, 
  Mr. Durbin, Ms. Cantwell, Mr. Brown, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Menendez, Ms. 
 Hirono, Mrs. Feinstein, Ms. Cortez Masto, Mr. Booker, Mr. Udall, Mr. 
Reed, Mr. King, and Ms. Duckworth) submitted the following resolution; 
          which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
    Designating September 2020 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 that were 
        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 that were designed to suppress the right of those individuals to 
        vote;
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, in the landmark case of Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 
        (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 and have become less likely to be invalidated by the 
        courts;
Whereas these gerrymandered districts have been found to have discriminatory 
        impacts on traditionally disenfranchised minorities through tactics that 
        include ``cracking'', diluting the voting power of minorities across 
        many districts, and ``packing'' or 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 at least 23 
        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, and the elimination of same-day 
        registration;
Whereas these policies 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 the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (referred to in this preamble as ``COVID-
        19'') public health emergency has only exacerbated the state of 
        elections and the difficulties voters face in obtaining access to the 
        ballot;
Whereas a lack of fair and safe election policies threatens minority 
        communities, which have been disproportionately impacted and 
        disenfranchised due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and their access to the 
        ballot;
Whereas addressing the challenges of administering upcoming elections in 2020 
        and beyond requires increasing the accessibility of vote-by-mail and 
        other limited-contact options to ensure the protection of voters' health 
        and safety amid a global pandemic;
Whereas, as voting by mail becomes a safer and more accessible option for voters 
        to exercise their constitutional right to vote during the unprecedented 
        times caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the work of the United States 
        Postal Service will be of paramount importance in successfully 
        conducting elections;
Whereas Congress must work to combat any attempts to dismantle or underfund the 
        United States Postal Service or obstruct the passage of the mail as 
        blatant tactics of voter suppression and election interference;
Whereas there is much more work to be done to ensure all citizens of the United 
        States have the right to vote through free, fair, and accessible 
        elections;
Whereas National Voter Registration Day is September 22; and
Whereas September 2020 would be an appropriate month to designate as ``National 
        Voting Rights Month'' and to ensure that, through the registration of 
        voters and awareness of elections, the democracy of the United States 
        includes all citizens of the United States: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) designates September 2020 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) commemorates--
                    (A) the 100th anniversary of Senate passage of the 
                19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United 
                States, which guarantees women the right to vote; and
                    (B) the legacy of generations of suffragists who 
                fought to protect women's rights at the ballot;
            (4) 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 John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act 
                of 2020 (H.R. 4 of the 116th Congress) (introduced in 
                the Senate as the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019 
                (S. 561 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 Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act 
                of 2020 (S. 4033 of the 116th Congress), to ensure that 
                every eligible voter in the United States is able to 
                exercise the right to vote safely and securely during a 
                declared state of emergency by, among other things--
                            (i) guaranteeing no-excuse absentee voting;
                            (ii) expanding early voting;
                            (iii) providing self-sealing return 
                        envelopes with prepaid postage for--
                                    (I) voter registration 
                                applications;
                                    (II) absentee-ballot applications; 
                                and
                                    (III) absentee ballots; and
                            (iv) providing accommodations for voters on 
                        Indian lands;
                    (D) the Delivering for America Act (S. 4527 and 
                H.R. 8015 in the 116th Congress), to prohibit the 
                United States Postal Service from making changes to 
                operations or levels of service that would reduce those 
                operations or levels of service relative to those that 
                were in effect on January 1, 2020, establish 
                requirements for the processing of election mail, and 
                provide additional funding for the Postal Service Fund;
                    (E) the Securing America's Federal Elections Act, 
                or the SAFE Act (S. 2238 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
                    (F) other voting rights legislation that seeks to 
                advance voting rights and protect elections in the 
                United States;
            (5) 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 and after passage of the Voting Rights 
                Act of 1965; and
                    (C) current measures that have been taken to 
                restrict the vote;
            (6) encourages the United States Postal Service to issue a 
        special John R. Lewis stamp during the month of September--
                    (A) to honor the life and legacy of John R. Lewis 
                in supporting voting rights; and
                    (B) 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
            (7) 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--
                    (A) to remind people in the United States when 
                elections are being held;
                    (B) to share important registration deadlines; and
                    (C) to urge people to get out and vote.
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