[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1394 Introduced in House (IH)]
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117th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1394
Expressing support for the designation of September 2022 as ``National
Voting Rights Month''.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 22, 2022
Mr. Veasey (for himself, Mr. Carter of Louisiana, Mr. Carson, Ms.
Jacobs of California, Ms. Moore of Wisconsin, Ms. Sewell, Mr. Scott of
Virginia, Mr. Suozzi, Ms. Williams of Georgia, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney
of New York, Mr. Brown of Maryland, Ms. McCollum, Mr. Smith of
Washington, Ms. Wilson of Florida, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Costa, Ms. Norton,
Mrs. Watson Coleman, Ms. Brown of Ohio, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. Evans, Ms.
Sanchez, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Ms. DelBene, Ms. Titus, Mr. Tonko, Mr.
Raskin, Ms. Plaskett, Mr. Cardenas, Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick, Mr. Lieu,
Mr. Connolly, Ms. Tlaib, Mr. Butterfield, Mr. Danny K. Davis of
Illinois, Ms. Barragan, Mr. Krishnamoorthi, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr.
Langevin, Mr. David Scott of Georgia, Mr. Higgins of New York, Mrs.
Napolitano, Ms. Lee of California, Mr. Green of Texas, Mr. Soto, Mr.
Kildee, Ms. Clarke of New York, Mrs. Dingell, Ms. Stevens, Mr. Gallego,
Ms. Meng, Ms. Jayapal, and Mr. Khanna) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and
in addition to the Committees on House Administration, Intelligence
(Permanent Select), Oversight and Reform, Science, Space, and
Technology, Education and Labor, Ways and Means, Financial Services,
Ethics, Homeland Security, and Armed Services, for a period to be
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration
of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee
concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing support for the designation of September 2022 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 Black 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, prior to 1919 and the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, women were denied the right to vote,
and, even following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, many women
remained unable to vote long into the 20th century because of
discriminatory State voting laws;
Whereas Black 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 5,800,000 people in the United States are currently banned from voting
because of a felony conviction, including 1 in 16 Black adults, due to
the shameful entanglement of racial injustice in the criminal legal
system and voting access in the United States;
Whereas members of the aforementioned groups and others are currently, in some
cases, subject to intimidation, voter roll purges, 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 Black 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'', 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 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 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 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 future elections 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 following the 2020 elections there has been a relentless attack on the
right to vote with more than 400 bills having been introduced to roll
back the right to vote, including such bills being introduced in almost
every State and at least 31 of such bills having been signed into law in
18 States;
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, and Congress must exercise its Constitutional authority to
protect the right to vote;
Whereas National Voter Registration Day is September 20; and
Whereas September 2022 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 House of Representatives--
(1) expresses support for the designation of ``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 2021 (S. 2093 and
H.R. 1 of the 117th 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 Freedom to Vote Act (S. 2747 of the 117th
Congress), to set basic national standards to make sure
all people in the United States can cast their ballots
in the way that works best for them, regardless of what
ZIP code they live in, improve access to the ballot for
people in the United States, advance commonsense
election integrity reforms, and protect the democracy
of the United States from relentless attacks;
(C) the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act
of 2021 (H.R. 4 of the 117th 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;
(D) the Democracy Restoration Act of 2021 (S. 481
of the 117th Congress), to restore Federal voting
rights to citizens after release from imprisonment,
honoring the responsibilities of citizenship and civic
engagement necessary for building healthy and safe
communities, while welcoming the contributions of
people returning home after imprisonment; and
(E) other voting rights legislation that seeks to
advance voting rights and protect elections in the
United States;
(4) encourages the development of strategies to educate
students about voting, including how to register to vote, where
to vote and the different forms of voting;
(5) encourages the United States Postal Service to issue a
special Representative John R. Lewis stamp during the month of
September--
(A) to honor the life and legacy of Representative
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
(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--
(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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