[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 350 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 350

    Designating September 2023 as ``National Voting Rights Month''.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           September 19, 2023

  Mr. Wyden (for himself, Mr. Carper, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Markey, Ms. 
 Cantwell, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Padilla, Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. Kaine, Ms. 
 Stabenow, Mr. Casey, Mr. Whitehouse, Ms. Smith, Mr. Lujan, Mr. Coons, 
  Mr. Welch, Ms. Hirono, Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Booker, Mr. 
 Sanders, Mr. Menendez, Mr. King, Mr. Fetterman, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Reed, 
  Mr. Merkley, Mr. Warner, Mr. Brown, Ms. Duckworth, and Mr. Cardin) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
                            on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
    Designating September 2023 as ``National Voting Rights Month''.

Whereas voting is 1 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 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 
        underrepresented 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 (52 U.S.C. 10303), 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 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.), gerrymandered 
        districts in many States have gone unchallenged and have become less 
        likely to be invalidated by the courts;
Whereas gerrymandered districts in many States 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 the 
        power of minority voters into 1 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, Wisconsin, Alabama, and Louisiana 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 the rights of voters and were 
        overturned by the courts;
Whereas the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Shelby County 
        v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), calls on Congress to update the formula 
        in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.);
Whereas addressing the challenges of administering future elections requires 
        increasing the accessibility of vote-by-mail and other limited-contact 
        options to ensure access to the ballot and the protection of the health 
        and safety of voters, and access to the ballot amid a global pandemic 
        like the Coronavirus Disease 2019 public health emergency;
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 44 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 in 2023 is Tuesday, September 19; and
Whereas September 2023 would be an appropriate month--

    (1) to designate as ``National Voting Rights Month''; and

    (2) 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 2023 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 Freedom to Vote Act (S. 1, 118th 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;
                    (B) the Democracy Restoration Act of 2023 (S. 1677, 
                118th 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
                    (C) 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 and after passage of the Voting Rights 
                Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.); and
                    (C) current measures that have been taken to 
                restrict the vote;
            (5) expresses appreciation for the United States Postal 
        Service having issued a special Representative John R. Lewis 
        stamp--
                    (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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