[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



         VOTER SUPPRESSION AND CONTINUING THREATS TO DEMOCRACY

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

  SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

                                 OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                       THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-49

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary



               [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
               


               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov

                                 ______
                                

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

48-271                    WASHINGTON : 2022






                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                    JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
                MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair

ZOE LOFGREN, California              JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Member
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,      DARRELL ISSA, California
    Georgia                          KEN BUCK, Colorado
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          MATT GAETZ, Florida
KAREN BASS, California               MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island     TOM McCLINTOCK, California
ERIC SWALWELL, California            W. GREG STEUBE, Florida
TED LIEU, California                 TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          CHIP ROY, Texas
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida          DAN BISHOP, North Carolina
J. LUIS CORREA, California           MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado                 CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon
LUCY McBATH, Georgia                 BURGESS OWENS, Utah
GREG STANTON, Arizona
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
MONDAIRE JONES, New York
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
CORI BUSH, Missouri

          AMY RUTKIN, Majority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
              CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director 
                                 ------                                

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, CIVIL RIGHTS,
                          AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

                     STEVE COHEN, Tennessee, Chair
                DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina, Vice-Chair

JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana, Ranking 
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,          Member
    Georgia                          TOM McCLINTOCK, California
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              CHIP ROY, Texas
CORI BUSH, Missouri                  MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            BURGESS OWENS, Utah

                       JAMES PARK, Chief Counsel



                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                       Thursday, January 20, 2022

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Steve Cohen, Chair of the Subcommittee on the 
  Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties from the State 
  of Tennessee...................................................     2
The Honorable Chip Roy, a Member of the Subcommittee on the 
  Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties from the State 
  of Texas.......................................................     4
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the 
  Judiciary from the State of New York...........................     7

                               WITNESSES

Mr. Wade Henderson, Interim President and CEO, The Leadership 
  Conference on Civil and Human Rights
  Oral Testimony.................................................     9
  Testimony......................................................    12
Ms. Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal 
  Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
  Oral Testimony.................................................    23
  Testimony......................................................    26
Mr. Damon T. Hewitt, President and Executive Director, Lawyers' 
  Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
  Oral Testimony.................................................    59
  Testimony......................................................    62
Mr. Thomas A. Saenz, President and General Counsel, Mexican 
  American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
  Oral Testimony.................................................    87
  Testimony......................................................    89
Ms. Maureen Riordan, Litigation Counsel, Public Interest Legal 
  Foundation
  Oral Testimony.................................................    96
  Testimony......................................................    98
Mr. T. Russell Nobile, Senior Attorney, Judicial Watch, Inc.
  Oral Testimony.................................................   108
  Testimony......................................................   110
Mr. Derrick Johnson, President and CEO, NAACP
  Oral Testimony.................................................   129
  Testimony......................................................   131
Ms. Helen Butler, Executive Director, Georgia Coalition for the 
  Peoples' Agenda
  Oral Testimony.................................................   135
  Testimony......................................................   137
Mr. Domingo Garcia, National President, League of United Latin 
  American Citizens
  Oral Testimony.................................................   161
  Testimony......................................................   164

          LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

Materials submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Member 
  of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and 
  Civil Liberties from the State of Texas, for the record
  A document entitled, ``Summary of Most Egregious Aspects of 
    Texas SB 1''.................................................   182
  An article entitled, ``Why Texas election officials are 
    rejecting hundreds of vote-by-mail applications,'' NPR.......   183
  An article entitled, ``Voting rights is a constitutional right: 
    Failure is not an option,'' The Hill.........................   187
  An article entitled, ``New Texas Republican map carves Jackson 
    Lee district and cuts off Black constituents,'' Washington 
    Post.........................................................   193
  An article entitled, ``Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green go to 
    Austin to fight GOP redistricting plan,'' Houston Chronicle..   197
  A press release entitled, ``Mayor Turner's Statement on 
    VoterRegistration Card Shortage in Texas,'' from the 
    Honorable Sylvester Turner, Mayor, City of Houston, January 
    18, 2022.....................................................   199
  An article entitled, ``Rep. Jackson Lee: The Senate must 
    suspend filibuster for bills designed to ensure right to 
    vote,'' Houston Chronicle....................................   201

                                APPENDIX

A statement from Donald K. Sherman, Vice President and Chief 
  Counsel, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, 
  submitted by the Honorable Steve Cohen, Chair of the 
  Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil 
  Liberties from the State of Tennessee, for the record..........   208
Materials submitted by the Honorable Sylvia Garcia, a Member of 
  the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil 
  Liberties from the State of Texas, for the record
  An article entitled, ``Texas Secretary of State Office sets 
    limits on voter registration forms due to supply chain 
    issues,'' CNN................................................   212
  An article entitled, ``Texas rejecting hundreds of vote-by-mail 
    applications under restrictive GOP-backed law,'' San Antonio 
    Current......................................................   214
  An article entitled, ``Texas rejects hundreds of mail ballot 
    applications under new voting limits,'' Reuters..............   216
Materials submitted by the Honorable Jamie Raskin, a Member of 
  the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil 
  Liberties from the State of Maryland, for the record
  A statement from FairVote......................................   219
  A report entitled, ``Ranked Choice Voting Elections Benefit 
    Candidates and Voters of Color,'' FairVote...................   221


 
         VOTER SUPPRESSION AND CONTINUING THREATS TO DEMOCRACY

                              ----------                              


                       Thursday, January 20, 2022

                     U.S. House of Representatives

            Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights,

                          and Civil Liberties

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., via 
Zoom, Hon. Steve Cohen [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Nadler, Cohen, Raskin, 
Ross, Johnson of Georgia, Garcia, Bush, Jackson Lee, McBath, 
Jordan, Johnson of Louisiana, and Roy.
    Staff present: John Doty, Senior Advisor and Deputy Staff 
Director; Moh Sharma, Director of Member Services and Outreach 
& Policy Advisor; Cierra Fontenot, Chief Clerk; John Williams, 
Parliamentarian and Senior Counsel; Keenan Keller, Senior 
Counsel; Gabriel Barnett, Staff Assistant; Merrick Nelson, 
Digital Director; Kayla Hamedi, Deputy Communications Director; 
James Park, Chief Counsel for Constitution; Will Emmons, 
Professional Staff Member/Legislative Aide for Constitution; 
Abbie Petty, Counsel for Constitution; Matt Morgan, Counsel for 
Constitution; Betsy Ferguson, Minority Senior Counsel; Caroline 
Nabity, Minority Counsel; James Lesinski, Minority Counsel; 
Andrea Woodard, Minority Professional Staff Member; and Kiley 
Bidelman, Minority Clerk.
    Mr. Cohen. Good morning. The Committee on the Judiciary 
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil 
Liberties will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare 
recesses of the Subcommittee at any time.
    I welcome everyone to today's hearing on voter suppression 
and continuing threats to democracy. Before I continue, I'd 
like to remind all Members that we have established an email 
address that was previously shared and distribution lists 
dedicated to circulating exhibits, motions, or other written 
materials that Members want to offer as part of the hearing 
today.
    I also ask unanimous consent that our Committee colleague, 
Representative Lucy McBath of Georgia, be allowed to 
participate in today's hearing and that she is permitted to ask 
questions should a Subcommittee Member yield her time.
    Without objection, so done.
    Finally, I would ask all Members and Witnesses to mute your 
microphones when you are not speaking. This will help prevent 
feedback and other technical issues. You may unmute yourself 
anytime you seek recognition.
    I'll now recognize myself for an opening statement. Earlier 
this past week, the nation commemorated the birthday of Dr. 
Martin Luther King on Saturday, and his national day of honor, 
Dr. Martin Luther King Day--which we owe a great debt of 
gratitude to our previous Chair, John Conyers, who labored for 
that 15 or 16 years to make it become law--on Monday, Dr. 
Martin Luther King Day, and it was right as a country that we 
do that right and it was right of John Conyers to initiate the 
idea and to continue persistently and doggedly to make sure it 
happened.
    Many public figures and officeholders gave speeches and 
statements to honor Dr. King's legacy of leadership, and some 
of them went further to talk about what his leadership was 
about, to ensure civil rights for all Americans, to make us a 
better nation.
    To truly honor Dr. King and in the way that I hear in 
church so often, to paraphrase, be of Dr. King and not just 
about Dr. King. We must defend the most fundamental right that 
he fought to secure for Black Americans and other historically 
oppressed people--the right to vote.
    Yes, he was for the right to organize and have workers 
compensated properly and recognize being part of a union, and 
he was for healthcare as a basic civil right and for peace and 
for equitable treatment of all people.
    The right to vote was the fundamental linchpin upon which 
it all rested. In his 1957 speech in May of 1957, he said, 
``The denial of this sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the 
highest mandates of our democratic tradition. And so our most 
urgent request to the President of the United States, every 
Member of Congress, is to give us the right to vote. Give us 
the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the Federal 
government about our basic rights.'' May of 1957, 65 years ago.
    Distressingly, those words from 1957 apply today just as 
aptly as they did the moment that he made the speech and it 
does this moment that we live, as large segments of our 
nation's political and governing class appear ready to retreat 
from what had been a long-standing bipartisan commitment to 
protecting multiracial democracy since the enactment of the 
Voting Rights Act of 1965.
    It's impossible to think of the Voting Rights Act without 
thinking of our dear colleague, John Lewis, who we all miss 
greatly. John Lewis, in the first march from Selma, was beaten 
and almost gave his life for the right to vote. Dr. King led 
the second march when the government came in and made sure it 
was successful rather than unsuccessful.
    People went to Selma with Dr.--John Lewis for his 
memorializations of the march, his memory of the march, and 
people went and were touched and spoke about it, how they went 
with John Lewis to Selma, and then some of those same people 
voted not to continue the Voting Rights Act that he nearly gave 
his life for, that's named for him, the John R. Lewis Voting 
Rights Act.
    As this Subcommittee has documented exhaustively through 13 
hearings over the course of the last three years, voting rights 
for Black Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, Asian 
Americans, disabled Americans, and other historically 
disadvantaged groups have once again come under significant 
threats in many parts of our country.
    The extensive record we have built for those hearings show 
that many States have adopted laws making absentee voting 
harder, reducing opportunities for early voting, and closing 
polling locations in predominantly minority precincts, among 
other things.
    According to the Brennan Center for Justice, between 
January 1, 2021, and December 7, 2021, more than 440 bills with 
provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 
49 States in the 2021 legislative sessions.
    These are the ``most extraordinary,'' numbers that the 
Brennan Center has seen in any years since it began tracking 
voting legislation in 2011.
    Disturbingly, since 2020, we have also seen States changing 
their election administrative laws and processes to politicize 
the counting of votes already cast. Vladimir Putin has said 
it's important--most important--who counts the votes.
    In some cases, these measures could allow partisan actors 
to interfere with vote counts or even overturn the results. 
Beyond these already troubling trends is the fact that this 
redistricting cycle was the first one without the Voting Rights 
Act preclearance provision in effect. The results were 
predictable.
    For example, in Georgia, several lawsuits have been filed 
challenging the State's new congressional legislative maps, 
alleging that they violate section 2 of the Voting Rights Act 
by denying Black voters the equal opportunity to participate in 
the political process and to elect their candidates of choice 
by diluting the strength of their voters and their votes.
    These maps also strip minority elected officials of power 
by targeting their districts for elimination. In Tennessee, 
Congressman Cooper's district was divided into three different 
districts, and instead of being a district with 28 percent 
minority impact, it now is a district with 12 percent, and the 
remaining 16 percent are scattered through two other 
predominately rural precincts where there will be 16 percent 
Black vote and 10 percent Black vote.
    Notably, people of color accounted for all Georgia's 
population growth between 2010-2020, a time when the State's 
White population declined.
    Yet, its redistricting plans not only failed to capture 
this back, but actively sought to remove minority voters from 
majority-minority districts and place them in the majority-
White districts. Cracking is what that's called.
    In Texas, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to 
challenge the State's redistricting plans as violations of 
section 212.
    Texas created two new majority White congressional 
districts, eliminated a Latino opportunity district, and failed 
to create a district capturing growth of the Latino electorate 
in Harris County, all despite the fact that 95 percent of the 
population growth in Texas during 2010-2020 was a result of 
growth in this minority population.
    We will hear from our Witnesses today about many other 
examples of how States besides Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee 
have manipulated district lines for Federal, State, and local 
offices to deny voters of color equal opportunity to 
participate in the political process and elect the candidates 
of their choice.
    Make no mistake, at this moment our nation's democracy 
stands on the precipice. We can talk all we want about the 
Founding Fathers, that they're turning over.
    We find ourselves in this position not only because of a 
procedural anachronism in the Senate, but because one of the 
two major political parties has chosen to reverse its historic 
support for strong voter rights protection, has instead chosen 
voter suppression as a political strategy.
    As recently as 2006 Congress was able to reauthorize the 
Voting Rights Act by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, 98 to 
nothing in the Senate--16 of those Senators are still in the 
Senate and they didn't vote for the John R. Lewis Voting Rights 
Act this time--and 390 to 33 in the House, over 10 to one.
    President George W. Bush pushed for the law's passage, and 
he signed it into law. Now, it appears that many on the other 
side of the aisle have come to the cynical conclusion that it 
no longer pays politically to protect voting rights. They want 
power at all costs.
    Process doesn't matter except how it helps them get power. 
Indeed, they seem to have come to the conclusion--erroneously, 
in my view--that they can only win if they suppress the right 
to vote of certain Americans.
    This is a tragedy. It's a tragedy for our country that some 
of its leaders have embraced the idea in the year 2022 that 
true multiracial and multiethnic democracy is a threat to them.
    It is, indeed, as Dr. King put it two generations ago, a 
tragic betrayal of the highest mandate of our democratic 
tradition. We now face an ever-narrowing window to save our 
democracy.
    We saw that door shut pretty close in the Senate. We're two 
votes short of getting an extraordinary process--to allow it to 
continue, and 52 short of the unanimity that it saw in 2006.
    Let us hope that there's a crack in the door. The light 
shines through a crack.
    Now, I'd like to recognize for an opening statement the 
Ranking Member, and the Ranking Member today is the gentleman 
from Texas, Mr. Roy, and I recognize Mr. Roy for his opening 
statement.
    Mr. Roy. Well, I thank the gentleman, and I am, indeed, 
substituting for my good friend, Mike Johnson, who has a 
conflicting hearing. He is apologetic he can't be here. He's 
got at HASC conflict. He'll be joining a little bit later.
    We are all here with our own concerns about what we saw 
happen last night, and after last night's failure in the 
Senate, here we are again.
    This will be the seventh hearing that this Subcommittee has 
had in nine months on the Democrats' race-baiting election 
bills, and that's what these are.
    Today's hearing will use State redistricting efforts to 
continue to advance the false charge of voter suppression and 
threats to democracy. That's what we're going to hear today.
    There will be cries that partisan gerrymandering that are 
conducted by both parties--that are conducted always by both 
parties--that are racial gerrymandering when they're conducted 
by the GOP. These cries are all about crass political power 
because that's what gerrymandering has always been since its 
formation.
    We can talk about how to make districts more compact, how 
to make districts better represent the people. This is all 
about crass political power and using race for that purpose.
    That's not really what bothers me because that's what I'm 
used to. It's that the cynical use of racial fearmongering 
built on lies about bills being passed at the State level.
    After last night's failure in the Senate, another attempt--
another failed attempt to defend massive legislation that 
Democrats have unilaterally jammed through the House multiple 
times now specifically designed to thwart fully legitimate 
State reforms that are good faith attempts to ensure ballot and 
election integrity.
    Yet, they will lie and claim that these good faith attempts 
are designed to suppress voting. That's not at all what these 
are about.
    For example, Speaker Pelosi said about Republicans that 
they, quote, ``voted to aid and abet the most dangerous 
campaign of voter suppression since Jim Crow.'' This is 
outrageous, and it was doubled down by the President last 
night, which I'll get to in a minute.
    This is a purposeful misinformation campaign by my Democrat 
colleagues and by a Democrat in the Administration to lie and 
suggest that opposing the following is voter suppression: 
Requiring voter identification, ballot harvesting--a practice 
that risks third parties having undue influence or control on a 
person's voter ballot--limiting mail-in ballots to requested 
ballots and requiring IDs to use them, not having, perhaps, 
all-night ballot drop options.
    That was the charge in Houston in a hearing I was in down 
in the Texas legislature. Having fewer early voting days 
compared to, say, another State.
    That's what's at the basis of all these charges, that these 
things are somehow voter suppression. The misinformation 
campaign is designed to make Americans believe they are for 
protecting voting rights. They use that term on purpose--voting 
rights--because who could possibly be against voting rights?
    For example, allow me to quote from acclaimed election 
history and law experts Jerry West, Nick Saban, Paul Tagliabue, 
and company.

        In the last year, some 20 States have enacted dozens of laws 
        that restrict voting access and allow local officials or State 
        legislatures to interfere inappropriately with Federal election 
        outcomes.

    Motivated by the unanticipated outcomes of recent close 
elections conducted with integrity, they say, these State laws 
seek to secure partisan advantage by eliminating reliable 
practices with proven safeguards and substituting practices 
ripe for manipulation. No doubt these famed election law 
experts spent the weekend reading the Federal legislation for 
which they were lobbying because I got the 700-page bill at 
11:30 p.m. last Thursday night before voting on it on Friday, 
right before we got the rule.
    I assume they read it thoroughly over the weekend as my 
staff stayed up into the middle of the night to actually see 
what was in the bill.
    I assume, too, that they know, for example, that the bill 
would lead to completely outlawing or eliminating voter 
identification.
    Do they know that four in five Americans--80 percent--
support requiring voters to show photo identification to cast a 
ballot? I know my colleagues are sure fine with everybody 
having to show a voter identification with vax cards across 
this country, including the nation's capital.
    Do they know that Delaware and Connecticut require photo or 
nonphoto ID and more--I'm certain that they have studied the 
intricacies of Texas law before disparaging it.
    I'm sure they spent time looking at that, or, say, studied 
the Georgia election law at least a little better than studying 
the University of Georgia's defense.
    Do they know that Georgia has 17 days of early voting and 
that President Biden's home State of Delaware only has 10 days? 
Are we looking at Delaware?
    This puts Delaware on par with Texas which, notably, still 
has more than Maryland, eight days; Jersey, nine days; New 
York, nine days; and Connecticut, zero days. Zero days in that 
bastion of wingnuttery, Connecticut. Georgia has no-excuse 
absentee voting. Joe Biden's home State of Delaware requires an 
excuse for absentee voting.
    Now, I'm fine with Delaware having that option. It's 
actually a reasonable debate. Does that make Delaware the 
target of this Committee's wrath? You don't hear them 
complaining about Delaware.
    You don't see the Biden Administration bringing Delaware to 
court. You don't see the Biden/Garland Department of Justice 
suing Maryland for their District maps in which Maryland 
Governor Larry Hogan called it the nation's most gerrymandered 
map as the State's legislature decided to override his veto.
    Why are they doing this? Because they have to claim voting 
rights are being violated to try to save themselves politically 
because they know their radical leftist agenda, in which crime 
is skyrocketing, opioids are flooding into our country, cartels 
are empowered, China's on the advance, vaccine mandates are 
crippling jobs, kids, and businesses, Russia is, potentially, 
invading Ukraine. All that is being rejected by the American 
people.
    The truth is that it is easier today for Americans to vote 
than ever before in our nation's history. Yet, Democrats tried 
to destroy the Senate filibuster on a partisan basis to do the 
following: Totally prohibit the use of voter identification, 
require States to allow felons to vote, create permanent paper 
ballot requirements, make political doxxing targets of donors 
to private organizations, use taxpayer dollars for political 
campaigns, and I could go on and on.
    My Democratic colleagues are not interested in debating any 
of their failed policies destroying freedom in the lives and 
livelihoods of Americans but, rather, to sow fear.
    President Biden said just yesterday, and I quote, ``I'm not 
saying it's going to be legit. The increase in the prospect of 
being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able 
to get those reforms passed.'' Further, ``It all depends on 
whether or not we are able to make the case to the American 
people that this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of 
the election.''
    Senator Schumer knew he wouldn't pass this bill. His 
purpose is not the legislation. The purpose is to delegitimize 
elections ahead of the game and to intentionally divide the 
country.
    They spent four years on Russian collusion. Now, they're 
setting up the narrative for 2022 to use race baiting to create 
a toxic environment of distrust to delegitimize a possible GOP 
majority, and we should be better than that.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Roy. I'm sorry I didn't catch all 
your remarks because I was riveted to the picture over your 
head. Is that Ben Hogan?
    Mr. Roy. It is Ben Hogan. My dad--I grew up in Texas and I 
played college golf and Hogan sponsored us. So yeah, that's who 
that is.
    Mr. Cohen. I saw him when I was 10 years old here in 
Memphis. It was a great moment. He was a great golfer.
    Mr. Roy. Yeah. A great, great story.
    Mr. Cohen. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Roy.
    It's now my pleasure to recognize the Chair of the Full 
Committee, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, who might 
have a picture of Y.A. Tittle somewhere.
    Chair Nadler. Unfortunately, I don't. Thank you, Mr. Chair, 
for convening this hearing.
    Today's hearing on voter suppression and continuing threats 
to democracy comes at a critical point in our history.
    For the past several weeks the debate surrounding voting 
rights has been almost exclusively focused on Senate 
procedures. Yet, it is critical to remember that while the 
Senate negotiates changes to its procedures, States like 
Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, and Ohio continue their assault 
on democracy.
    Legislation to protect the fundamental right to vote in 
fair elections free from racial discrimination faces united 
obstructions from Republicans in the Senate.
    Ironically, they are so intent on blocking legislation to 
strengthen our democracy that they will not even permit the 
vote--the most basic democratic act, the majority vote.
    This disregard for core small ``D'' democratic values no 
longer surprises many of us. Until relatively recently, both 
parties shared a commitment to supporting the Voting Rights 
Act.
    As President Biden pointed out in his recent speech in 
Atlanta, the Senate voted 98 to nothing to reauthorize the 
Voting Rights Act in 2006, and the then-Chair of the 
Subcommittee, Steve Chabot, and I presided over thousands of--
hundreds of hours of hearings to make the record.
    Sixteen Republican Senators who voted to reauthorize the 
Act that year still serve in the Senate. Now, they stand firmly 
in opposition.
    Here in the House, Mr. Chabot and I joined our former 
Chair, Jim Sensenbrenner, and Ranking Member John Conyers to 
lead efforts to pass this 2006 reauthorization overwhelmingly 
by a vote of 390 to 33. President George W. Bush signed it into 
law. Sadly, that seems like ancient history now.
    As the threat to voting rights evolved for decades after 
the initial adoption, Congress continually updated and 
reauthorized the law on a strong bipartisan basis in response 
to less racially overt but no less discriminatory threats to 
the right to vote.
    For example, section 2 of the Act, which will be a primary 
focus of today's hearing, was amended on a bipartisan basis in 
1982 to address attempts by States to dilute the strength of 
minority voting power through the redistricting process and the 
other changes to the methods of election on the Federal, State, 
and local level.
    As we will hear from our Witnesses today, vote dilution 
efforts remain a critical threat to our democracy as certain 
States seek to co-opt the redistricting process. These States' 
attempts to dilute the strength of votes cast by minority 
voters are even more alarming in light of efforts by Republican 
State and local officials to manipulate the composition of 
local election boards or otherwise change laws related to the 
Administration of elections.
    I must comment here on the remarks made by Mr. Roy, who 
said that many States have harmless laws. In Georgia, for 
instance, and in other States, precincts and drop boxes are 
deliberately being reduced in minority areas so as to produce 
long lines, and then they make it a criminal offense to offer a 
sandwich or a drink of water to someone waiting online.
    Gerrymandering is justified as political rather than racial 
gerrymandering. Yet, we see as Chair Cohen noted, the racial 
motivations and the racial impact of these gerrymanderings.
    The potential cumulative result of these various changes to 
voting procedures and district lines, if they remain in place, 
is a serious reduction in minority voting strength and a 
reduction in Black, Latino, and other minorities' 
representation and participation in government at every level.
    An elected government that does not accurately reflect the 
participation of American voters, all American voters, 
regardless of race, is no true democracy.
    In response to these efforts, Congress must do, once again, 
what it has done repeatedly on a bipartisan basis for decades 
since 1965--update and strengthen the Voting Rights Act to 
ensure that all Americans can continue to vote and participate 
in our democracy.
    Yet, this time, we have been met with total obstruction. 
The problem is not one Senator from West Virginia. The problem 
is a political party--the Republican party--that has given in 
to cynicism and adopted the worst arguments of those who 
opposed the passage of the Act of 1965, all to gain some 
marginal political advantage.
    Michael Carvin, representing the Arizona Republican Party 
in the Supreme Court, gave away the game when he boldly 
admitted this position in open court.
    In response to a question from Justice Amy Coney Barrett 
about why his party had an interest in defending strict voting 
restrictions that were alleged to have violated section 2, he 
commented that eliminating them, ``puts us at a competitive 
disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game 
and every extra vote they get through an arguably unlawful 
interpretation of section 2 hurts us.''
    He wants to weaken voting rights because it will help him 
win. It's that simple.
    If we are to remain a true democracy, we must resist 
attempts to poison our election machinery with partisan 
interests that disenfranchise minority voters, and we must stop 
attempts by States to deny or dilute the votes of Americans 
because of their ethnicity or skin color. Our Constitution and 
our values command no less.
    I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses, and I yield 
back the balance of my time.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will remind everybody 
that we're taking votes now. So, if you're not in DC at the 
Capitol, you might want to make sure you cast your proxy vote.
    Now, it's not my pleasure. Mr. Jordan is not going to give 
an opening statement. So, we'll go to our Witnesses now.
    We welcome our Witnesses on both panels and thank them for 
participating in today's hearing. I will now introduce each of 
our Witnesses and after each introduction will recognize that 
Witness for his or her oral testimony.
    Each of your written statements will be entered into the 
record in its entirety and I ask you to summarize your 
testimony in five minutes.
    To help you stay within that five minutes there's a timer 
in the Zoom view that should be visible on your screen. It's 
not visible on my screen but, hopefully, it's visible on your 
screen.
    Before proceeding--and maybe it could be visible on my 
screen. How do we do this? I don't know. More background 
filters--it's too complex for me.
    Before proceeding with testimony, I would like to remind 
all our Witnesses you have a legal obligation to provide 
truthful testimony in the answers to the Subcommittee. Any 
false statement may subject you to prosecution under section 
1001, title 18, the United States Code.
    Our first Witness is Mr. Wade Henderson. Mr. Henderson has 
been with this Committee as a Witness and has been a gentleman 
fighting for civil rights for my entire career in Congress and 
for many years before that. He's a champion. He's the interim 
President and CEO of the Leadership Conference for Civil and 
Human Rights, have previously led that organization for more 
than 20 years.
    The Leadership Conference is a coalition of more than 200 
civil and human rights organizations. He's a graduate of Howard 
University and the Rutgers University School of Law.
    Mr. Henderson, you are recognized for five minutes.

                  STATEMENT OF WADE HENDERSON

    Mr. Henderson. Good morning, Chair Cohen, Ranking Member 
Roy, Full Committee Chair Nadler, and Members of the 
Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the 
most pressing issue of our time, the freedom to vote.
    This morning, we find ourselves in an extraordinary moment. 
Last night, the Senate delivered a devastating one-two punch to 
our democracy. First, the cloture motion to end debate which 
required a 60-vote majority failed to bring to a final vote the 
Freedom to Vote John R. Lewis Act. Then, an attempt at 
filibuster reform to ensure the eventual passage of the bill 
was defeated.
    Now, every senator had a choice to make, whether to save 
our democracy or surrender it. In a deeply disappointing 
outcome, the Senate voted to surrender. Members surrendered our 
democracy to State and local legislatures across the country 
who would take us back to a world which we call Jim Crow 2.0, a 
world of exclusion, control, and inequality. Members 
surrendered to those who stoked their partisan base with 
vicious rage and incited violence against this very body and 
they surrendered it to those who wrongly challenged election 
outcomes and threatened election officials and their families.
    If ever there were a moment in history that we needed our 
leaders to unite to preserve our most fundamental principle of 
participatory democracy, this was it. By leaders, I mean all 
Senators, from both parties. We not only called upon Democratic 
senators to defend our democracy, but we also called upon 
Republicans, too.
    The Voting Rights Act has enjoyed strong bipartisan support 
since its enactment in 1965. This includes overwhelming votes 
in Congress for the reauthorizations that were signed into law 
by Republican presidents four times. Sixteen current Republican 
senators voted for the Voting Rights Act in 2006.
    Yesterday, we made a final plea to Minority Leader 
McConnell to allow an up or down vote citing long standing 
Republican support and reminding him that it was Republicans, 
not Democrats, who passed the 14th and 15th Amendments to the 
U.S. Constitution. Last night, these Senators failed to meet 
the moment. Their refusal to allow the John Lewis bill even to 
come to a vote shows how far their party has fallen.
    Yesterday was a devastating day for our democracy, but as 
Dr. King said, and I quote, ``Change does not roll in on the 
wheels of inevitability but comes to continuous struggle.''
    I want to assure you that the struggle continues. The civil 
rights community is not backing down from this fight. Our 
elections, the officials who operate them, and the voters 
seeking to participate in them, are all under relentless 
attack. We are in this fight for them, and we will fight until 
we win. Now nearly nine years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court 
gutted the heart of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. 
Holder. In its ruling, the Court invited Congress to update the 
formula for requiring certain States and jurisdictions to pre-
clear voting changes to ensure they do not discriminate.
    It was Members of the House Judiciary Committee who took up 
the Court's invitation with resolve and tenacity. I want to 
thank the Committee for your leadership in developing the 
congressional record with evidence of voter discrimination and 
taking seriously your obligation to restore the Voting Rights 
Act.
    The Leadership Conference supported those efforts by 
publishing 13 State reports that documented the pervasive, 
persistent, and adaptive nature of modern-day voting 
discrimination just as the Supreme Court instructed. We 
documented how the floodgates of discrimination opened on the 
very day of the Shelby County decision. Mere hours after the 
announcement, North Carolina passed its monster anti-voter law 
which was later struck down by the Fourth Circuit Court of 
Appeals for targeting African Americans with almost surgical 
precision. Texas was not far behind with its own restrictive 
bill that a Federal court ruled was intentionally 
discriminatory.
    We documented how this assault on democracy has only grown 
in momentum since the 2020 election. The big lie advocated by 
Donald Trump is fueling the actions of State lawmakers for 
using the absence of Federal voting protections to pass one 
restrictive voting law after another. A classic example is 
Arizona which last year drastically limited voting by mail, the 
voting method of choice for 80 percent of Arizonans. Combined 
with record-breaking changes or closures of polling places, 
Arizonans now have fewer opportunities to vote.
    We are also seeing frightening attacks on election 
officials and poll workers, interference with impartial 
election Administration, and challenges to election results, 
and voter dilution to partisan gerrymandering. This 
coordinated, anti--
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Henderson, we need to wrap up.
    Mr. Henderson. Thank you, sir. I will. We lost the battle 
last night. As our heroes did before us, we will fight on until 
victory is won because we have no other choice. Our democracy 
demands it and thank you for this opportunity.
    [The statement of Mr. Henderson follows:]

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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Henderson. I can't help but 
continue to think about [inaudible] a time when Charlie Sifford 
wasn't even allowed to play on the tour and of course, Charlie 
Sifford was relegated to back seat tournaments until he won the 
Hartford Open in what was referred to as the Wingnuttery State 
of Connecticut in 1967. Great man, Charlie Sifford.
    I would like to recognize our next Witness, Ms. Sherrilyn 
Ifill. Ms. Ifill is the President and Director--Counsel of the 
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, a position she has held 
since 2013. In that role, she has led the LDF and increased its 
visibility and engagement, litigating cutting edge and urgent 
civil rights issues, and elevating the organization's decades-
long leadership fighting voter suppression, inequity in 
education, and racial discrimination in the criminal justice 
system.
    She first joined the Legal Defense Fund in 1988, and 
litigated voting rights cases for five years before leaving to 
teach constitutional law and civil procedure for the next 20 
years at the University of Maryland School of Law. She received 
her J.D. from New York University School of Law and 
undergraduate degree from Vassar.
    Ms. Ifill, you are recognized for five minutes and thank 
you.

                  STATEMENT OF SHERRILYN IFILL

    Ms. Ifill. Good morning, Chair Cohen, Vice Chair Ross, 
Ranking Member Johnson, and Members of the Subcommittee. My 
name is Sherrilyn Ifill, and I am the President and Director-
Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund or LDF.
    I have had the honor of appearing before this Committee in 
the past to talk about the need for voting legislation to 
protect the rights of all Americans, especially for racial 
minorities, but I have never felt the sense of urgency or alarm 
as I feel appearing before you today.
    Last night, the U.S. Senate failed to find a will to push 
past an arcane rule with racist roots. This increases my alarm, 
but also my resolve.
    This country is in a State of democratic crisis. This very 
moment, States are drafting, passing, and implementing laws 
designed to create insurmountable barriers to voting. Those 
barriers are targeted principally at Black and Latino voters, 
Native American voters, disabled voters, and students. They 
include laws designed to restrict early voting, absentee 
voting, and the use of ballot drop boxes. They add the insult 
of making it a crime to provide water or refreshments to the 
injury of those who have to wait up to nine hours to exercise 
the right that the Supreme Court has said is preservative of 
all rights, the right to vote.
    Laws have passed that are being considered that would leave 
Black and Latino voters vulnerable to the kind of intimidation 
reminiscent of the worst days of the civil rights struggle and 
that we saw on the rise in the 2020 election. Just this week, 
the Governor of Florida announced a plan to create an election 
police force answerable to him.
    Even more alarmingly, States have passed laws that give 
partisan legislators control over the outcome of elections no 
matter the votes cast. Election officials from Secretary of the 
State to vote counters have experienced the sharp rise in 
threats to their lives and to their families. Scores of expert 
nonpartisan election officials have resigned from office rather 
than continue exposing their families to danger. This would be 
catastrophic for elections.
    Since last spring, LDF has seen Florida, Georgia, and Texas 
reverse voter suppression laws targeted at our communities. 
These lawsuits have survived multiple attempts to prevent our 
clients from seeing their day in court showing the seriousness 
of our claims and we are suing Alabama and South Carolina for 
drawing congressional districts for State legislative maps that 
undercut Black voters' chance to elect candidates who will 
speak to their urgent concerns in the halls of power.
    Alabama's congressional map is akin to one person half a 
vote for that State's long suffering Black community. We cannot 
litigate our way past this threat. Others like Black Voters 
Matter, the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, are organizing, 
mobilizing, and registering voters on the ground, but we cannot 
organize our way past this threat.
    In the past, it was Congress through the Voting Rights Act 
that ensured we had strong tools. Then the Supreme Court 
weakened those tools first in the Shelby County v. Holder case 
and then just this past summer in the Brnovich case. This is 
why Congress must act.
    Do not be fooled by those who call voting legislation a 
Federal takeover of State elections. That is what Southern 
segregation has said about mandatory school desegregation as 
part of massive resistance. Tell them that their problem is not 
with the Congress or with the Democrats, but with the 
Constitution itself. Tell them that article 1, section 4 of the 
Constitution gives Congress the power to make laws that control 
the time, place, and manner of Federal elections. Tell them 
that section 5 of the 14th Amendment and section 2 of the 15th 
Amendment expressly empower Congress to enforce the guarantees 
of equality in voting. You have the authority and 
responsibility, and that constitutional power must outweigh 
allegiance to any congressional rule, particularly a rule that 
has been most often used to thwart civil rights.
    There is no more time to wait. Early voting for the Texas 
primary starts in just 25 days and Black and Brown voters will 
be heading to the polls with a shredded shield facing new 
restrictive laws without desperately needed Federal protection. 
Added to this, we are more than halfway through the first 
redistricting process in six decades without the full 
protections of the Voting Rights Act. States like Texas and 
Alabama have seen population growth driven almost entirely by 
people of color that have already drawn maps that failed to 
increase representation for those people or even set it back 
and not just at the congressional, but judicial districting, 
school board districting, and county commissions. One expert's 
blunt assessment of this redistricting cycle, people of color 
are getting shellacked.
    Black and Brown Americans face the greatest assault on our 
voting rights in decades. Only Congress can help now by passing 
the Freedom to Vote John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act. As civil 
rights groups, we will not stop pushing for passage of the 
legislation.
    Historians seeking to explain the next century of American 
life will look back at this very moment and ask the question 
did we Act when we had the chance or did we squander our last 
best hope to protect the freedom to vote and save our 
democracy.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to be here.
    [The statement of Ms. Ifill follows:]

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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Ifill, and thank you for your 
important work.
    Our next Witness is Damon Hewitt. He is the President and 
Executive Director of Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under 
Law. He has over 20 years of civil rights litigation and policy 
experience developed over numerous positions he has held in 
various organizations and nonprofits and public sectors. He has 
spent more than a decade of his counsel NAACP Legal Defense 
Education Fund and has authored numerous Law Review articles 
and the book, The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Structuring Legal 
Reform.
    Mr. Hewitt received his J.D. from the University of 
Pennsylvania Law School and his B.A. from Louisiana State 
University.
    Mr. Hewitt, you are recognized for five minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF DAMON HEWITT

    Mr. Hewitt. Thank you, Chair Cohen, Vice Chair Ross, 
Ranking Member Johnson, Mr. Roy, and Members of this 
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil 
Liberties. My name is Damon Hewitt and I am President and 
Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights 
Under Law. I appreciate the chance to testify before you today 
about this series of on-going threats to voter suppression and 
election subversion posed to Black voters, Brown voters, and 
ultimately our entire democracy.
    I join my fellow panelists in sounding the alarm to this 
Committee, the Full Congress, and the public about the urgent 
and substantial dangers we face as a nation due to the failure 
to adequately protect the fundamental right to vote to millions 
of people, particularly people of color, indigenous people, 
low-income people, senior citizens, students, and people with 
disabilities.
    In reaction to the historic voter participation in 2020 and 
fueled by the big lie, voter suppression bills have spread like 
a cancer throughout the States over the past year and both 
brazen and violent efforts to subvert and overturn valid 
elections have ripped the nation. At the Lawyers' Committee, we 
have seen these efforts up close. We have litigated more voter 
rights cases in the past decade than even the U.S. Department 
of Justice including pending cases in States like Georgia and 
Texas on voter suppression and redistricting cases in those 
States, and also Illinois where we actually sued Mr. Roy and 
challenged Democrats for their erosion of the ruling strength 
of a Black community in East St. Louis.
    We also hear directly from voters through our convening 
role in the Election Protection Coalition, the nation's largest 
and longest running nonpartisan voter protection effort. During 
the 2020 election season, we mobilized tens of thousands of 
volunteer attorneys and directly assisted over a quarter 
million voters through the 866-OUR-VOTE voter protection 
hotline as they cast their ballots through the global pandemic.
    We also represent U.S. Capitol Police officers in the civil 
rights lawsuit against the perpetrators and coconspirators 
responsible for the violent January 6th Capitol insurrection.
    The voter suppression efforts and the violence we saw on 
January 6th actually share a common thread. These are 
deliberate acts by desperate people, those hell-bent on 
silencing millions of Black voters, Brown voters, young people, 
seniors, and others who turned out during the 2020 election, 
all in the interest of maintaining personal and partisan power.
    As you know, the Supreme Court has vetted the Voters Right 
Act preclearance provision, the formula, section 4 which 
enables section 5 in Shelby v. Holder. In the absence of 
preclearance, many States including those with the recent 
record of discriminating against Black voters have enacted 
harsh voter suppression laws and devised new mechanisms to 
hijack electoral processes, measures that now go immediately 
into effect.
    In the past year alone, we are seeing bills that shorten 
the request period for mail-in ballots, impose strict signature 
requirements for vote by mail, adopt restrictions on how and 
when ballots can be delivered in terms of drop boxes and the 
like, and also closing polling place locations, in some cases 
reducing them down to one in the country, limiting voting hours 
and shortening the early voting period.
    Georgia is a prime example. It is SB 202 which I believe 
Helen Butler will testify about later in this proceeding, but 
it is important to note that Georgia also enacted legislation 
that reconstituted several county election boards including 
those in places like Morgan, Troup, Lincoln, and Spalding 
Counties purging Black Members from those election boards. So, 
these bills are not just death by a thousand cuts. Those cuts 
are interspersed with deep and vicious gouges and gashes that 
we believe and allege are antidemocratic.
    The amounts of voter suppression, because they target the 
means of voting that are most popular with communities of 
color, even those that have become more recently popular during 
the pandemic. They are specifically designed to make it harder 
for certain people to vote which is why we have alleged 
intentional racial discrimination in our litigation.
    Remember, States like Georgia don't just want to change the 
rules to prevent people from voting. They also want to prevent 
any sunlight or accountability for their actions, hence, the 
takeover of local election boards. In the absence of the 
prophylactic power of section 5 to stop this legislation 
through preclearance, impacted voters are left with less 
effective remedies.
    During last night's Senate floor debate, we heard one 
Senator point to litigation under section 2 in Texas and 
elsewhere as an indication that the Voting Rights Act still has 
some power. We believe it does have power, but let's be clear. 
Section 2 is not an effective substitute for section 5. Section 
2 litigation is more data intensive, time consuming, and 
expensive, but also it takes time for the courts to actually 
render a rule. By the time courts provide relief, sometimes the 
damage is already done, as I have indicated in my written 
testimony.
    Without section 5 preclearance or robust section 2 standard 
which itself was also weakened and made cloudy about a Supreme 
Court decision in Brnovich v. DNC, we are in a pickle as a 
nation. We are in a crisis as a community, and we must address 
this today. Congress must pass the combined Freedom to Vote and 
John R. Lewis Act to strengthen the Voting Rights Act's 
provisions.
    Members, this hearing comes just five days after what would 
have been the 93rd birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther 
King, Jr. I want to leave you with his words: ``Voting is the 
foundation stone for political action. With it, we can 
eventually vote out of office public officials who bar the 
doorway to decent housing, public safety, jobs, and decent 
integrated education. The vote is essential.''
    I believe that is exactly what some people are afraid of, 
that the vote is powerful, that the vote will be used by Black 
voters, Brown voters, and other voters of color, and other 
voters marginalized by voter suppression. Make no mistake, 
congressional action or obstruction or inaction in the face of 
these outrageous attacks on democracy is the moral equivalent 
on complicity in the acts themselves.
    Thank you for your time. I will rely on my written remarks 
and testimony for the remainder of my time.
    [The statement of Mr. Hewitt follows:]

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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Hewitt, and I apologize. I 
understand I incorrectly referred to the NAACP Legal Defense 
and Educational Fund as Education Fund. So, I want to get that 
clear and thank you for your good work.
    Mr. Hewitt. Thank you.
    Mr. Cohen. Our next Witness is Mr. Thomas Saenz. Mr. Saenz 
has been with us before, distinguished President and General 
Counsel to Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
of MALDEF, a position he has held since August 2009. He was 
also with MALDEF for 12 years and for eight years he taught 
civil rights litigation as an adjunct lecturer at the 
University of Southern California School of Law. Mr. Saenz 
received his J.D. with honors from Yale Law School; an 
undergraduate degree magna summa--summa cum laude from Yale. He 
is recognized now for five minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF THOMAS SAENZ

    Mr. Saenz. Thank you and good morning, Honorable Chair, 
Ranking Member, and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Thomas 
Saenz, President and General Counsel of MALDEF and as you 
noted, I have had the opportunity in the last year or two to 
address this Subcommittee about the critical importance of the 
John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and, in particular, 
reintroducing preclearance as a powerful form of alternative 
dispute resolution to both prevent and efficiently deter voting 
rights violations by jurisdictions across the country.
    Today, I have the opportunity to address the ongoing 
redistricting process that as you know occurs every decade 
throughout the country. We are midway through that process, but 
we already have some sense of what the impact of this first 
redistricting without the protections of preclearance will be.
    For the Latino community that has shown substantial growth 
over the past several decades, every redistricting process 
since at least 1981 has presented the opportunity warranted by 
the growth of the Latino population to elect new officials who 
are responsive and selected by the Latino community.
    This year should prove no exception. Our Census show that 
51 percent of the entire country's population growth in the 
last decade was from the Latino community. Latinos are now 19 
percent of the total national population and have shown even 
higher rates of growth in particular States around the country. 
That opportunity that should have been occasioned through the 
Census demonstrated growth has not been realized.
    Although we are midway through the process in some States 
and many localities are still going through the redistricting 
process, I can now quantify in some sense the impact of the 
failure to put in place the John R. Lewis Act and in 
particular, its preclearance formula.
    MALDEF is in litigation against three States: Texas, 
Illinois, and as of yesterday, Washington, about their 
statewide redistricting processes. I choose these three States 
not just because we are litigating against them, but because 
they demonstrate the lie about the assertion that somehow the 
Voting Rights Act is a partisan tool used only against 
Republicans.
    In Illinois, the process we challenged was entirely in the 
hands of Democrats. In Texas, yes, it was entirely in the hands 
of Republicans. In Washington State, notably, it was a 
redistricting commission rather than a partisan legislature 
that drew the lines that we now challenge.
    In these three States and particularly in Illinois and 
Texas, both, we saw not just the failure to create new Latino 
majority districts in State legislature, Congress, and in the 
Texas State Board of Education, but also the dismantling of 
districts that were already Latino majority, either because 
they were drawn that way a decade earlier, or because they had 
developed through natural movement of population in the deemed 
majority Latino districts over the last decade. So, we saw both 
failures to create new districts and dismantling of existing 
Latino majority districts.
    In these three States, we saw for the Latino community the 
price of the failure to enact the John Lewis Act in 18 lost 
Latino majority seats in Congress, State legislatures, and 
State Board of Education, 18 seats. I emphasize that because 
the unfortunate nature of vote suppression is we often cannot 
quantify the impact. Even at the primary level, we can only 
estimate how many eligible voters have been prevented from 
registering or casting a ballot. We can only speculate about 
how they might have voted and the impact on the election.
    When it comes to secondary effects, we can only guess. We 
know it is devastating, but we can only guess at how many 
voters were deterred from participating themselves because a 
member of the family or community was prevented by vote 
suppression from casting a ballot. At the tertiary level, again 
devastatingly we know, but we can only guess at how many people 
have seen this cynicism about government increase because of 
vote suppression.
    Through redistricting we can quantify the effects of the 
failure to enact the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. The Latino 
community now stands at 18 lost Latino majority districts, 
districts that would have allowed the growing Latino community 
present in this country from its very beginning in significant 
numbers since the mid-19th century and an increasing portion of 
our future would allow that community to elect candidates of 
choice to important legislative positions. That 18 is only the 
beginning because you are only midway through this process. 
That 18, however, demonstrates how critically important that 
the Senate acts to put in place the John Lewis Act and the 
preclearance formulas that are embedded within. Thank you.
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Saenz, your time has expired.
    [The statement of Mr. Saenz follows:]

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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir. Our next Witness is Ms. Maureen 
Riordan. I welcome you back. You have been with us before. It 
is nice to have you back again. A litigation counsel for the 
Public Interest Legal Foundation which she joined in 2021, 
previously serving for 20 years as an attorney in the Civil 
Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice including as 
Senior Counsel, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights 
during the Trump Administration. Ms. Riordan received her J.D. 
from St. Mary's University School of Law and her B.S. of 
Criminal Justice from Seton Hall.
    Ms. Riordan, you are recognized for five minutes.

             STATEMENT OF MAUREEN RIORDAN HENDERSON

    Ms. Riordan. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Members of the 
Subcommittee, and Ranking Members. Thank you for your 
invitation to testify today.
    For over 20 years, I served in the Civil Rights Division of 
the Department of Justice. Eighteen of those years were spent 
as a Voting Section Attorney and Senior Counsel. From August of 
2000 until the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. 
Holder, my sole responsibility was to review changes in voting 
that were submitted for section 5 preclearance.
    In that decision by the Supreme Court, the Court made clear 
that only certain conditions would justify any formula for 
section 5 coverage today. Among the touchstones listed by the 
Court are blatant discriminatory evasions of Federal decrees, a 
lack of minority office-holding, tests and devices to vote, and 
voting discrimination that is both flagrant and rampant.
    Simply put, such discrimination does not, in my opinion, 
exist today. As the Supreme Court stated: Federal intrusion 
into the powers that are reserved to the States must relate to 
empirical evidence. Triggers, such as many of those contained 
in these bills that are built around political and partisan 
goals, will never withstand constitutional scrutiny.
    I come from a unique perspective because I did spend 20 
years enforcing the Voting Rights Act. Unfortunately, I have 
learned some discouraging truths.
    The section 2 which the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Bill 
would give power to is the Voting Section in the DOJ. I have to 
tell you that Voting Section is full of ideological, partisan 
bureaucrats. Employees display an open hostility to anyone who 
does not hold their leftist beliefs. The Inspector General's 
report that I have attached to my written testimony provides 
many instances of bad behavior.
    They have a disdain for the equal application of civil 
rights to all Americans. Furthermore, there is an accepted 
belief that certain States should be targeted by the Department 
in their voting rights enforcement. I have actually witnessed 
signs on attorneys' doors that State, ``Mess with Texas.'' 
After the Shelby County decision extinguished the section 5 
enforcement abilities, the company line within the section was 
the following:

        If we could just get a case of intentional discrimination by 
        the State of Texas, we can request section 3(c) coverage, and 
        that will be enough work to keep everybody busy.

    The section has a long list of abuses by its lawyers for 
improper collaboration in reviewing section 5 submissions. If 
you want to know how Georgia was targeted, one might look at 
the case of Johnson v. Miller. I have attached the opinion to 
my written testimony, and I encourage everyone to read it.
    Here, the Court sanctioned Voting Section Attorneys in the 
amount of $594,000 for their egregious behavior in collusion 
with an attorney from the ACLU. The Department had twice 
refused to preclear a redistricting plan by the State of 
Georgia for congressional offices. After twice refusing to 
preclear that plan, they demanded that Georgia submit a plan 
containing minority representation that was far in excess of 
what is legally required or permissible. On the third attempt 
to get preclearance, the State of Georgia caved and actually 
accepted and put forward a plan that had been submitted by an 
ACLU attorney and recommended by the Department.
    Unfortunately, for the State of Georgia, years later, the 
Federal Court found that the plan violated the 14th Amendment 
because it was drawn for race reasons only. Essentially, the 
State of Georgia was denied preclearance of its plan, until it 
was browbeaten by the Department of Justice to accept a plan 
that clearly violated the 14th Amendment.
    There are permanent provisions of the Voting Rights Act, 
such as section 2, that prohibit discrimination and provide the 
DOJ with the ability to challenge election procedures. It is 
noted that, until this year, they have only brought four 
section 2 violations since the Shelby decision.
    Lastly, these bills ban State photo IDs, despite 
overwhelming support from a clear majority of Americans. They 
require same-day registration; require recognition of coalition 
districts; limit a State's ability to verify eligibility and 
remove ineligible voters; require online voter registration and 
require automatic registration; require the restoration of 
felon voting rights, and taxpayer money to fund congressional 
candidates. These are just a few of the provisions.
    These provisions accomplish three things:

        (1)  The overturn several Supreme Court precedents.
        (2)  They severely damage the integrity of our elections.
        (3)  They impose unconstitutional mandates on the States.

    Thank you.
    [The statement of Ms. Riordan follows:]

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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Riordan.
    Our next Witness is Mr. T. Russell Nobile. If I 
mispronounced that, help me. He is Senior Attorney for Judicial 
Watch. From 2005-2012, he served as trial attorney in the Civil 
Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, including 
five years in the Division's Voting Section. Also, previously, 
he was a Legislative Assistant to a Member of the House 
Financial Services Committee. He received his J.D. from the 
Mississippi College School of Law and his B.A. from the 
University of Mississippi. He served as a law clerk to the 
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
    Mr. Nobile, please, you are recognized for five minutes.

                 STATEMENT OF T. RUSSELL NOBILE

    Mr. Nobile. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Cohen and 
Ranking Member Roy, and other Members of the Subcommittee. It 
is an honor to be back before the Subcommittee.
    In 2008, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of 
voting ID. Following that rule, there was a rush by advocacy 
groups alleging rampant illegal voter suppression. The nature 
of those claims varied, but they usually involved allegations 
that common-sense election regulations such as voter ID and 
longstanding time, place, and manner regulations 
disenfranchised minority voters.
    Such allegations gained new intensity after the Supreme 
Court's 2013 Shelby County rule. Following that, many advocates 
revised their approach, claiming that alleged voter suppression 
could only be stopped if Congress would pass new legislation 
that abandons 233 years of constitutional tradition and have 
the Federal government, rather than the States, assume control 
over elections nationwide.
    In an attempt to rally support for this new legislation, 
its proponents have described a near dystopian-like world in 
which minorities have no right to vote, and even going so far 
as to coin the term ``Jim Crow 2.0'' to describe disfavored 
State election regulation. More recently, they have smeared 
people that don't support Federal takeover of elections as 
long-lost supporters of Jefferson Davis, George Wallace, and 
Bull Connor.
    Everyone here knows what Jim Crow involved. It was State-
sponsored oppression of American citizens and in many instances 
much worse. It is a uniquely dark period in our nation's 
history with few parallels. For that reason, it is mystifying 
that some allegedly serious advocates would smear reasonable, 
common-sense election regulations as Jim Crow 2.0. Such 
comments suggest the speaker neither understands Jim Crow nor 
election regulation. Jim Crow is not a brand, and it is not a 
software update. It is a dark period in our history that is 
being invoked right now to inflame passions and to create fear 
in minority communities.
    As testified before this Committee in July of last year, 
minority registration and turnout, not hyperbolic soundbites, 
tell the true story of ballot access in the United States. 
Recent data shows that racial disparities in voting have been 
dramatically reduced, in many cases eliminated. This progress 
is something we should be proud of. Yet, proponents of 
federalizing elections rarely mention it.
    The fact is that the minority participation during the 2020 
elections was exponentially higher nationwide than it was 
during the actual Jim Crow period in 1965. For example, take 
Tennessee, Chair Cohen's home State. Black registration and 
turnout in Tennessee in 2020 exceeded that for Whites. That is 
hardly Jim Crow.
    The same is true just downriver in Mississippi. Previously, 
Jim Crow Mississippi had an astonishingly low, 64 percent 
registration rate for Blacks. Ballot access has actually 
improved over the last 15 years, despite relentless voter 
suppression claims. Minority registration and turnout has 
increased, and racial disparities have decreased.
    The reality is that it is simply impossible for anyone to 
reconcile current claims of large-scale voter suppression with 
ballot access statistics. Moreover, despite the near ceaseless 
claims of voter suppression over this time period, there is 
woefully inadequate popular support in favor of a Federal 
takeover of elections. Indeed, it is hard to find alleged 
support for federalizing elections to be overseen by Federal 
agencies akin to the CDC, the IRS, the Postal Service, or even 
the DOJ.
    The improvements in ballot access statistics over the last 
15 years occurred, even while numerous States implemented 
allegedly suppressive voter ID policies. In fact, concerns 
about allegedly suppressive voter ID policies have failed so 
spectacularly that voter ID now enjoys near universal national 
support, with recent polling estimating 80 percent of Americans 
support it.
    There is an undeniable disconnect between today's voter 
suppression narrative and reality, which explains why there is 
inadequate popular support for federalizing elections. Until 
this is resolved, the John Lewis Act and the Freedom to Vote 
Act will remain remedies in search of a problem.
    Thank you very much for the invitation to testify today, 
and I look forward to answering your questions.
    [The statement of Mr. Nobile follows:]

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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
    I do remember you from our previous hearings. Would you 
remind me how you pronounce your name?
    Mr. Nobile. Yes. It is Nobile.
    Mr. Cohen. Nobile?
    Mr. Nobile. Like Mobile, Alabama, with an ``N.''
    Mr. Cohen. Mobile, Nobile. Nobile. I got you.
    Thank you, Mr. Nobile.
    Somebody has noticed that I moved my chair. I did that for 
a purpose. Mr. Henderson will understand why, I guess. I am 
underneath Everett Dirksen, who looks a bit frazzled and upset, 
and that is the way he would be today. Senator Dirksen, who led 
the cloture fight in 1964 to pass the civil rights bill--the 
first time a cloture vote had ever succeeded on a civil rights 
act--he was a Republican, the Republican Minority Leader, and 
he was a sponsor, the prime sponsor, of the 1965 voting rights 
law that passed, as did the civil rights bill, with more 
Republican percentage votes than Democratic votes. The only no 
votes on those bills were the Southerners who resisted change 
forever. Everett Dirksen, a great Senator back in the day when 
Republicans were true to their original founding and had always 
been for civil rights.
    Now, I would like to recognize Mr. Derrick Johnson. He is 
the President and CEO of the NAACP, a position he has held 
since October of 2017. He previously served as Vice Chair of 
the NAACP National Board of Directors and is President of the 
NAACP Mississippi State Conference.
    Mr. Johnson received his J.D. from South Texas College of 
Law; his undergraduate school degree from Tougaloo College in 
Jackson, Mississippi. I think Benny Thompson might have gone 
there, but I know Lenal Anderson did, a man I know in Memphis 
who just passed away and a fine lawyer.
    Mr. Johnson, you are recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Johnson, you might need to turn on your microphone.

                  STATEMENT OF DERRICK JOHNSON

    Mr. Johnson. That is important. You can hear me now?
    Mr. Cohen. That is exactly right. Thank you.
    Mr. Johnson. Good morning, Chair Nadler and Cohen and 
Ranking Members Jordan and Johnson, and Subcommittee Members.
    Thank you for the invitation to testify about concerted 
efforts to disenfranchise Black Americans and the need to pass 
the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.
    I ask permission to include my full statement in the 
record.
    I am proud to be with you today representing the nation's 
oldest and largest civil rights organization. I am here to 
speak for Members and activists of the NAACP across the 
country. I am also speaking to you as a proud adopted son of 
the State of Mississippi. Mississippi has been my home for the 
past 30 years. I live and work in the heart of the State where 
so many battles for civil rights were fought.
    It was in Mississippi where Medgar Evers, my predecessor, 
served at the State Conference and gave his life for the cause 
of voting rights. It was in Mississippi where righteous people 
of all races, religions, and creeds converged 58 years ago to 
register voters during Freedom Summer. Among them were 
individuals such as Hollis Watkins and Euvester Simpson, who 
worked closely with Fannie Lou Hamer.
    It was in Mississippi where some of those heroes were 
summarily executed by White supremacists for the crime of 
registering Black votes. Their sacrifice made this country a 
more perfect union. The danger they struggled against never 
fully disappeared. Instead, it festered under the surface, and 
it is now spilling back out in a toxic soup of White 
supremacists.
    We are now facing an all-out attack on Black voters by a 
former president, State governors, Federal and State 
legislators, with complicity of the Supreme Court majority that 
has abandoned its duty to uphold the Constitution to protect 
Black citizens' right to vote.
    We saw this right here in Mississippi where the NAACP 
documented an alarming degree of voter suppression in 2020. For 
example, polling places in Black neighborhoods throughout the 
State endured an increased and a very visible police presence. 
Black voters were purged from voting rolls and forced to vote 
provisionally without any certainty that their vote would 
eventually be counted. Late openings, equipment problems, long 
lines in predominantly Black neighborhoods forced many voters 
to choose between their paycheck and their vote, as a result of 
waiting an exorbitant amount of time to cast their ballot. This 
wasn't limited to Mississippi; this was repeated in many States 
across the country, North and South.
    As serious as these problems were, we now know that 2020 
was just a dress rehearsal for the upcoming elections. The new 
Jim Crow generation has ramped up its efforts to suppress the 
political power of Black Americans to a new level with tools 
and tactics their predecessors could only dream of. We are 
looking at new lyrics, but the same old song.
    Even if we can find a way to overcome the obstacles they 
are constructing, they are creating a coordinated framework to 
assure that ballots, once cast, are not counted and will not 
count. The Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act will go a long 
way towards disrupting this effort to disenfranchise Black 
voters. The NAACP has never backed down from working for 
equality and justice, and we will not back down now, along with 
our partners.
    We can't do it alone. We need Congress to join us, to hold 
true to your constitutional duty to protect our vote. Earlier 
this week, we marked Dr. King's birthday, and we watched 
numerous politicians quote Dr. King and embrace his life and 
legacy. I will say to all of you that words are nice, but, in 
the end, it is your actions that matter and that you will be 
remembered for.
    The actions we need from you now is to stand on the right 
side of history and pass the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis 
Act. It is so important to understand that what we Witnessed 
last night isn't the end because the Voting Rights Act, 
originally, it took three attempts to finally pass.
    Thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today, 
and I will be happy to take your questions.
    [The statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, and thank you for your 
work and representing the NAACP and Tougaloo.
    Helen Butler is the Executive Director of the Georgia 
Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda. In that role, she leads an 
advocacy organization founded by the Honorable Reverend Dr. 
Joseph E. Lowery. These initiatives have increased citizen 
participation in the government of their communities in areas 
that include education, criminal and juvenile justice reform, 
voter protection, and economic development.
    Ms. Butler, you are recognized for five minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF HELEN BUTLER

    Ms. Butler. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Cohen, Vice-
Chair Ross, Ranking Member Johnson, and Members of the 
Committee.
    I am Helen Butler, Executive Director of the Georgia 
Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda, and I thank you for allowing 
me this opportunity to talk about the ongoing threats to the 
voting rights of Georgia's Black voters and other voters of 
color which deny them equal access to the ballot box and, 
ultimately, undermine democracy.
    The Peoples' Agenda has always been dedicated to fighting 
for the voting rights of Georgia's citizens through public 
education, training, advocacy, and mitigation. However, we are 
spending even more time and limited resources fighting 
discriminatory voting laws, policies, and procedures at the 
State and local levels in Georgia without the preclearance 
process of section 5 that would have prevented many of these 
discriminatory voting laws and discriminatory redistricting 
plans from taking effect.
    According to the Census, Georgia was one of the top five 
States gaining population in the past decade, with Black people 
accounting for 12.5 percent; the Latinx population, 32 percent; 
and the AAPI population, 52 percent. By contrast, Georgia's 
White population decreased by four percent.
    The electorate has undergone significant demographic 
changes with increases in the percentage of Black Georgians and 
other Georgians of color registering to vote, participating in 
elections, and utilizing mail voting and early voting for 
casting their ballots in all their elections. These changes in 
voting patterns have resulted in corresponding political 
changes, as we saw with our historic election of our first 
Black U.S. Senator, Raphael Warnock, and first Jewish Senator, 
John Ossoff.
    In response to this increasing diversity of Georgia's 
electorate, our majority party enacted SB 202, an omnibus voter 
suppression bill which drastically altered the process by which 
voters applied for and received absentee ballots for mail-in 
voting. They placed new restrictions and severe penalties on 
public officials and nonprofit groups like mine for providing 
absentee ballot applications to voters who need them. It 
outlawed nonprofit organizations from providing just water and 
comfort items to voters who stood in line, long lines, waiting 
to vote at polling locations, and other suppressive 
restrictions and penalties.
    At the same time, SB 202 allowed voter challenges, 
including partisans seeking to suppress the vote, lodging 
frivolous challenges which required election officials to 
schedule time-consuming hearings, even while administering 
elections, and only giving voters three days' notice to 
respond, and that notice was by mail, which oftentimes meant 
that they would have to leave their jobs or school commitments 
and not be able to attend to defend their right to vote.
    Just last night, the Peoples' Agenda and other Georgia 
grassroots organizations were in Lincolnton in Lincoln County, 
Georgia, a rural county with a large land mass, no public 
transportation, and approximately 6,000 registered voters for a 
Board of Elections meeting where the Board was planning to vote 
on a proposal to close all seven of the county's existing 
polling places and replace them with a single vote center in a 
gymnasium located on a two-lane country road outside of the 
main downtown business and residential districts in the city of 
Lincolnton.
    This proposal came on the heels of new restrictions to 
absentee voting in SB 202, as well as another bill signed by 
Governor Kemp in 2021 that reconstituted the Lincoln County 
Board of Elections to ensure that the majority party would have 
control over the appointment of a majority of the Members of 
Boards of Elections.
    In an effort to stop this change from happening, the 
Peoples' Agenda and our partners presented the Board of 
Elections with a petition under Georgia law which would 
prohibit the county from moving forward with polling place 
changes if 20 percent of the voters in a precinct signed the 
petition. That petition we submitted met the threshold, but 
three of the seven precincts during the Board of Elections 
meeting, of course--
    Mr. Cohen. Ms. Butler, your time is up.
    Ms. Butler. Oh, sorry. Okay.
    What I am saying to this is that we really need the full 
force and the passage of the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act 
to ensure the protection of the right to vote for all Americans 
because we stand in imminent danger of having our hard-fought 
rights denied in greater numbers. Please Act now like our 
voting rights and democracy depend upon it because it does.
    [The statement of Ms. Butler follows:]

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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Butler. I appreciate your 
testimony.
    Mr. Domingo Garcia, I don't believe--is he able to hear us? 
I think he is having technical difficulties, and so be it. He 
was to represent the United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, but 
he is not able to participate because of technical 
difficulties. So, thank you for your attempt.
    Thank you for all the Witnesses.
    We will now go under the five-minute rule with questions. I 
will begin by recognizing myself.
    First, I just want to put another historical footnote.
    Everett Dirksen, of course, behind me is a historical 
footnote and a great one to this day. The last Voting Rights 
Act we had in 2006 was named for Fannie Lou Hamer, Mr. Johnson, 
for Rosa Parks, for Barbara Jordan, and Cesar Chavez, and other 
great civil rights leaders.
    A civil rights leader on our Committee is Ms. Lucy McBath 
of Georgia. I think it is appropriate at this point, after this 
published testimony, that I yield the remainder of my time to 
Ms. McBath, who knows firsthand what Georgia is doing in 
redistricting.
    Ms. McBath, you are recognized for the remainder of my 
time.
    Ms. McBath. Well, thank you so much, Chair Cohen and 
Congressman Rankin, and all the Members, for allowing me just a 
moment to address the Committee today.
    In recent years, and arguably even longer, my home State of 
Georgia, my district has kind of been the poster child for 
State-led voter suppression. The State has repeatedly sought to 
suppress the voices and the will of millions of Georgians, 
particularly African Americans. Sadly, voter suppression is not 
just a Georgia issue, as we have said today, but it is rampant 
across the South and increasingly in many other States in our 
great nation.
    Voter suppression is just not a racial issue. It is an 
issue of democracy, and efforts to suppress the will of the 
people are, in turn, attempts to suppress the promise of 
democracy that was intended for our nation. When not all 
Americans are guaranteed the capacity to fully exercise their 
right to vote, and when votes are diluted, as we have watched, 
as is happening all over America, we weaken our country's 
ability to live up to its full potential.
    This Congress has a responsibility to and must pass voting 
rights legislation. As Martin Luther King, Jr., has said in the 
past, and I repeat this--so eloquently he spoke this--we are in 
``the fierce urgency of now.''
    Thank you so much for allowing me a moment, and I yield 
back the balance of my time.
    Mr. Cohen. You are very welcome, Ms. McBath.
    Ms. Butler, people have said that--I think Mr. Roy said 
that--certain States like Delaware got less early voting than 
Georgia. Tell us some of the things that Georgia has done to 
oppress people's right to vote. Why is the voting rights law 
and the Supreme Court's eye on Georgia? Why would that be 
important for people to vote?
    Ms. Butler. Well, as I said, they are making it more 
difficult for people to be able to exercise their right to vote 
by mail. They are requiring photo ID to be submitted with their 
absentee ballot application.
    Mr. Cohen. Let me ask you about that, because that is 
interesting. I am not--a lot of people are for voter ID and 
all. For absentee ballots, how do you do voter ID in Georgia? 
What do they want you to do, take a hologram and send it in?
    Ms. Butler. Well, if you don't have a Georgia driver's 
license or a Georgia State ID, not even the free voter ID that 
you get from the State, but a State ID, then you have to 
provide one of the other pieces of ID, like a copy of your 
utility bill or some other piece of document that proves your 
name and address. Of course, to do that, you would have to have 
the capability of making copies.
    Well, as we were in Lincoln County yesterday, there is not 
a FedEx center, there is not an Office Depot, for people to 
actually go and make copies. So, if you don't have a copy 
machine at home, then how do you get a copy to send in, because 
you are still in a pandemic? They would be required to travel 
15-20 miles one way to get to a polling location. So, it would 
be very difficult for them to do that.
    Mr. Cohen. I got you. I see the problem. I see the problem.
    Ms. Butler. Internet connection, too, is a problem.
    Mr. Cohen. Yes, a lot of people in my district don't have 
copy machines in their homes. They hardly have black-and-white 
televisions. It is not easy.
    Mr. Henderson, you have been around a while. Tell me, back 
in the day, when you recall Republicans were leaders in civil 
rights and voting rights, like Everett Dirksen, what has 
changed?
    Mr. Henderson. Well, thank you, Mr. Cohen, Chair Cohen, for 
your question. Your portrait of Everett Dirksen behind you is a 
very powerful reminder of the important bipartisan support for 
voting rights since the inception of the Voting Rights Act in 
1965.
    You mentioned in your opening statement the support of a 
bipartisan Senate and House of Representatives for the 
reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 2006. It is 
important to remember that. I remember when a Committee Chair 
of Judiciary, F. James Sensenbrenner, went to the floor of the 
House of Representatives to defend the Voting Rights Act 
against four amendments, any one of which could have easily 
derailed the bill. It was a powerful indication of the 
importance of leadership and bipartisan support that made that 
bill possible.
    Unfortunately, our country today is very different than it 
was in 2006. It is incredibly polarized. We are seeing that 
polarization reflected in the unwillingness of Republicans in 
the Senate to even support a motion to proceed to debate, to 
even allow the bill to be debated.
    When the Leadership Conference Membership and I sought to 
get support from Republicans, our Members wrote to 16 
Republican Senators requesting a meeting, and particularizing 
activity taking place in each of their States, to justify why 
it was so important for them to at least express a willingness 
to sit down and talk. We found complete resistance to that 
effort.
    So, to suggest, as has been done in the Senate, that we did 
not reach out to Republicans is simply false, and we have 
documented that in a series of letters that we wrote. It is 
impossible to have bipartisanship if one side completely 
refuses to even discuss an issue of extraordinary importance.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
    Mr. Henderson. That is why this effort was so clear, yes.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Henderson, for explaining why it 
is complex and not simplistic to get these things done.
    I now recognize the temporary Ranking Member, Mr. Roy, for 
questions.
    Is Mr. Roy with us?
    [No response.]
    If not, is there a Republican with us?
    [No response.]
    The Republicans have left the room, like Elvis used to.
    So, Mr. Nadler, you are on. Mr. Nadler?
    Chair Nadler. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Ms. Ifill, in your testimony, you cite historical parallels 
between the urgency of this moment and the end of the 
Reconstruction Era. Could you further elaborate on this point 
and explain how the Voting Rights Act has, until now, served as 
a bulwark against the democratic backsliding we are witnessing 
in States like Georgia and Texas?
    Ms. Ifill. Thank you very much, Chair Nadler. Yes.
    As a matter of fact, I think this is a really important 
point. Because one of the things it is critical to understand 
about the voting suppression laws that we are seeing is that 
the rise in these laws began immediately after the Supreme 
Court's decision in the Shelby County v. Holder case in 2013.
    Within months, Texas had decided to resuscitate a voter ID 
law that they would not have been able to preclear, that they 
had, in fact, tried to preclear earlier, and were prevented 
from doing so. We sued and challenged that law, and we were, 
ultimately, successful. The trial court, in fact, found that 
there was intentional discrimination in the creation of that 
voter ID law.
    So, the progress that Mr. Nobile talked about in 
Mississippi, for example, was directly the progress that came 
as a result of the Voting Rights Act; of the Voting Rights 
Act's preclearance provisions; of section 2 of the other 
provisions that protected against conspiracies to interfere 
with the right to vote.
    In the Reconstruction period, the Reconstruction Congress 
was very clear about what would be needed to ensure that Black 
people would be full citizens. The 13th, 14th, and 15th 
Amendments, obviously, are the amendments that were designed to 
ensure that--the 13th, ending slavery; the 14th, providing for 
birthright citizenship for both free and formerly enslaved 
Black people--their citizenship had been taken away by the Dred 
Scott decision--and including several provisions within the 
14th Amendment that would punish Southern States that did not 
allow at that time Black men to vote. Then, the 15th Amendment, 
protecting against racial discrimination in voting.
    In both the 14th and the 15th Amendments, the 
Reconstruction Congress included enforcement clauses, and those 
clauses gave Congress the power to enforce the guarantees that 
were articulated in the two Amendments. That is the power from 
which Congress was able to pass the Voting Rights Act. It is a 
statute that implements the power that was given to the 
Congress in the Constitution in the 14th and 15th Amendments.
    It was that power that Congress did not use, frankly, for 
the first half of the 20th century and the last 20-30 years of 
the 19th century. They failed to use that power, which is why 
Black voters were disenfranchised in this country, particularly 
in the South, for most of the 20th century, until the civil 
rights movement pushed Congress, forced Congress to wake up, 
forced Congress to do its duty, forced Congress to fulfill its 
obligations under the 14th and 15th Amendments, by passing the 
Voting Rights Act, which provided those provisions that 
resulted in the ability of many Black people to be able to 
vote.
    What was interesting--
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    Ms. Ifill. Can I just add one thing about the Voting Rights 
Act? It was that, in the Act, in the legislative history, what 
the Congress said is that the Voting Rights Act, particularly, 
section 5, was meant not only to address voting discrimination 
that they were seeing at the moment, but to address what they 
described as ``ingenious methods'' that might be used in the 
future. They didn't have laws then that kept you from providing 
water to people in line to vote, but they knew that there would 
be ingenious methods in the future. That was the purpose of 
preclearance, and that is why we need it back.
    Chair Nadler. All right. Mr. Saenz, what is the difference 
between racial and partisan gerrymandering, and what are the 
challenges of proving race discrimination in gerrymandering 
under section 2?
    Mr. Saenz. Thank you, Congress Member.
    The fact is that section 2 litigation is extremely 
difficult, and that is because it is litigated under the 
totality of the circumstances test established in the 
legislation. That means that you have to put together an array 
of experts on issues relating to discrimination in voting and 
beyond. You have to put together lay witnesses with experience 
in the dilution-of-vote suppression that you are challenging. 
It is simply extremely difficult to prove.
    The same is true of racial gerrymandering, where you have 
to demonstrate that the predominant consideration by the 
redistricting body was race, when we know that race is relevant 
consideration. The Supreme Court has recognized that. So, you 
are trying to put what is done into a very narrow scope of over 
considering race.
    The bottom line, as you know, is that litigation under 
section 2 and under the Constitution is extremely expensive and 
why we need preclearance as an ADR mechanism to address voting 
rights violations more efficiently.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
    I would now like to recognize a Republican. Is there a 
Republican who is with us and wants to be recognized?
    [No response.]
    If not, I would remind people that Everett Dirksen 
sponsored the Voting Rights Act, again, and led the cloture 
vote, the first time ever a civil rights bill had been stopped 
by cloture. Because, for years, the filibuster was there to 
defeat civil rights laws. That is why it was founded. That is 
why it was started. Even Yale has taken John Calhoun's name out 
of its history, off its dorm, and into the dust bed of history.
    I now recognize for questioning Mr. Raskin. Is Mr. Raskin 
with us?
    [No response.]
    I think I will go to Mr. Hank Johnson. I saw him on the 
screen. Is Mr. Johnson still with us? Mr. Johnson?
    He is walking. So, he must have voted.
    So, we will go to Ms. Garcia of Texas, Ms. Sylvia Garcia 
from the great State--I am not going to say that--from Texas.
    Ms. Garcia. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank 
you for, once again, bringing this very critical matter to our 
attention.
    I am not one that is complaining about the seven hearings 
that we have had. I am not the one complaining of putting more 
and more attention. It really is a time for action and a time 
for legislation. So, thank you again.
    This is actually something that is really dear to my heart 
because many of the items that we have been talking about are 
items that have stemmed from the State of Texas.
    As we all know, our democracy is built on the sacred 
principle that every American has an equal and fair right to 
vote. States like my home State of Texas are imposing laws that 
are already limiting that sacred right. Texas and other States 
continue to pass laws that suppress, silence, and dilute 
minority voters, especially Latinos. We cannot let this stand. 
We must take action. It is our responsibility, our duty, to 
protect voting rights for every American, no matter what their 
ZIP code, where they live, or what language they speak. By 
banning partisan gerrymandering and creating new protections 
for voters, we will ensure every American can make their voice 
heard.
    History has shown us that Texas and Texas Republicans have 
gone to much length in the past, and continue to do that, to 
suppress votes. I disagree with my colleague from Texas from 
the other side of the aisle; suppression is alive and well in 
Texas, whether or not you want to admit it. For decades, 
Republicans have split up and packed communities of color to 
dilute their vote and suppress their vote.
    As was mentioned in the Chair's remarks earlier, in Texas, 
95 percent of the growth in Texas was due to people of color, 
predominantly Latino. Yet, all the districts that were created 
were created for Republican White voting districts.
    So, I want to start with Mr. Saenz. Mr. Saenz, you and I 
worked together on many of these issues for a long time. Tell 
us how changes in the Voting Rights Act would protect us and 
prevent a legislature from doing what they did this last time, 
where, even though the population growth was people of color, 
their results were that they packed Democrats into districts 
and created more White Republican districts.
    Mr. Saenz. Absolutely. As I mentioned in my testimony, we 
have seen in three different States a total of 18 lost Latino 
majority districts. 10 of those come out of Texas. That is 
despite, as you know, half of the growth of the State being 
Latino in the last decade. Those 10 lost seats are in Congress, 
State House, State Senate, and on the State Board of Education.
    How a reinvigorated Voting Rights Act through the John 
Lewis Act would address that is clear. Texas would be required, 
under the John Lewis Act, under both the geographic 
preclearance formula and the known practices coverage formula, 
would be required to submit its redistricting statewide for 
prereview and preclearance either by the Department of Justice 
or, as you know, as Texas has decided on several occasions in 
the past, by a three-judge District Court in Washington, DC.
    That would efficiently determine whether there was 
retrogression, as there clearly has been from the maps adopted 
this year, or last year rather, and whether there has been 
intentional voter discrimination, as Texas has been adjudicated 
over several redistricting amendments. So, instead of being 
mired in litigation, because of the delay in Census data and 
because of your early primary in Texas, it will not be resolved 
before the 2022 primary elections move forward. Instead, we 
would have preclearance, very efficiently and effectively 
preventing these violative redistricting lines from ever taking 
effect, that result today because of the failure of the Senate 
to enact the John Lewis Act. It means that we will have in 2022 
these violative lines in place in Texas.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
    Mr. Chair, I only have like 40 seconds. I will yield my 40 
seconds to my colleague and friend, Lucy McBath, when her time 
comes at the end of the hearing.
    Mr. Cohen. Ms. McBath's has already spoken. If she would 
like some more time, she is certainly--
    Ms. Garcia. Oh, I want to apologize. I was on the floor and 
I did not know that. I thought she was going to be left for the 
end of the hearing, as you stated. So, if she wants 40 seconds, 
she can have them.
    Mr. Cohen. Well, let me ask Ms. McBath a question, and you 
have got 40 seconds.
    In redistricting in Georgia, what did they do with your 
district?
    Ms. McBath. Well, thank you so much for the time to 
explain.
    District 6 is the district in Georgia that needed to change 
the least. So, what they actually have done, they have taken a 
Biden-plus-11 district and they swung it 26 points to Trump. It 
is now a Trump-15 district. They have taken out of my existing 
district most of the diverse and Democratic voting blocks and 
have shuffled in very conservative and Trump and red voting 
blocks.
    That was deliberate. I have always been the top target by 
the Republican Party here in Georgia. Being the Member that 
sits in the seat that was once held by Newt Gingrich--and I am 
the first minority in the history of Georgia to ever sit in 
this seat, the first Democrat since 1979--I have always been 
the target.
    So, what they have done is taken two swing districts, 
District 6 and 7, and they have created a new Democratic open 
seat, District 7, but they have done what we know to be 
cracking and packing.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. McBath. I am just shocked by the 
fact that Mr. Roy said that didn't happen and doesn't exist.
    Ms. McBath. It does.
    Mr. Cohen. Ms. Garcia, it is your time, and I guess you 
have to yield it because your five minutes are up. Thank you, 
Ms. Garcia.
    Next, we go to a Republican. Is there a Republican with us?
    [No response.]
    They still have not come back.
    Mr. Hank Johnson of Georgia, would you like to take your 
five minutes at this time?
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and, yes, I 
would.
    Thank you for holding this very important hearing. Voting 
rights is not going away, even though the Senate last night 
failed to do what it should have done.
    In some respects, we can call it a racist Senate, the same 
way that we can talk about racism when it comes to my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle making statements 
today about Black people and Democrats race-baiting. It is 
like, when you mention about how much of racism still exists in 
the soil of America, they want to plant their heads in that 
soil and refuse to acknowledge what is in the soil.
    They have been emboldened now, Mr. Chair. My colleague from 
Texas I am sure would not have felt comfortable in talking like 
he spoke three or four years ago. Because of--
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Roy is back. He is back with us now, a 
Republican being with us. I just want to make that 
announcement.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, good.
    Because of the election of Donald Trump and the Make 
America White Again movement, he feels empowered to be able to 
say what he wants to say. He knows that it is wrong, but he 
feels entitled. He feels privileged. It is White privilege; it 
is White power that allows him to say what he said. I am just 
blown away by where we have fallen in our discourse on this 
Committee.
    At any rate, we heard about--Mr. Henderson, I would like to 
ask you. Georgia is one of the nation's fastest-growing States, 
and this growth has largely been driven by people of color. 
Over the last decade, Georgia's Black population grew by 16 
percent, almost half a million people, while the population of 
White Georgians has decreased. Yet, the new legislative maps do 
not reflect this tremendous growth of Georgia's Black 
population.
    Mr. Henderson, the Supreme Court has declared partisan 
gerrymandering challenges a nonjusticiable political question. 
It has continuously held that States may not engage in 
intentional racial gerrymandering, is that correct?
    Mr. Henderson. That is correct, Mr. Johnson. That is 
correct.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. To be clear, district maps are 
presumptively unconstitutional when race is the predominant 
motivating factor in the legislature's redrawing of 
congressional and legislative maps, correct?
    Mr. Henderson. That is also correct.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. How are you able to show race as a 
motivating factor?
    Mr. Henderson. Thank you for the question.
    My colleague, Tom Saenz, who represents MALDEF, I thought 
ably answered that question in response to an earlier inquiry. 
It is extremely difficult to establish the fact pattern 
necessary to show that redistricting was based exclusively on 
race or predominantly on race. It makes challenging 
redistricting in a way that would show racial gerrymandering 
extremely difficult to accomplish. One has to look at the 
totality of circumstances and deduce from those circumstances 
that race was the predominant factor, and that is extremely 
hard to do.
    I am now quite familiar with what is going on in Arizona 
because, in a meeting recently with Senator Sinema, to point 
out why having a debate on voting rights was so necessary, we 
pointed out the demographic changes that have taken place in 
that State over the past 10 years. We pointed out the fact 
that, since the Shelby County decision, 320 polling places in 
Arizona were closed. Seventy percent of polling places in 
Maricopa County, the most diverse county in the State, have 
been closed. At the same time, the legislature adopted recently 
a limitation on mail-in voting, which Arizonans used, 80 
percent of the population.
    When you combine those factors together, the heavy reliance 
on mail-in balloting, the closure of polling places, and 
restrictions that affect Native American households because of 
their lack of mailing addresses, other information; when you 
look at the attacks on election workers that have occurred in 
the aftermath of the 2020 election, and the fraudulent review 
of voting procedures conducted by the so-called ``Cyber 
Ninjas'' in Arizona, the first of its kind, the totality of 
circumstances lays the foundation which allows you to help 
evaluate both what is happening in the election process and the 
gerrymandering circumstances.
    Others may be familiar with Georgia specifically.
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Johnson, your time is up, I believe.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I would just leave with the fact that it would only be--
well, it would be only six blind mice on the Supreme Court who 
could not be able to look through the facade and under a 
totality of the circumstances rule correctly. I am not 
confident that will happen.
    With that, I yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
    We are now at an unusual time in our hearing, in that we 
have--Mr. Garcia, can you hear me?
    Mr. Garcia. Yes, I can.
    Mr. Cohen. All right. Mr. Garcia, who could not testify 
because he had technicalities, is now with us. I will yield to 
the desires of the minority who are with us now, Mr. Johnson, 
the Ranking Member, and Mr. Roy, the Acting Ranking Member. 
Would you like for Mr. Garcia to proceed with his testimony now 
or would you prefer that we wait until after you have your 
opportunity to question Witnesses, each of you. Or what would 
be your preference? I don't want to discriminate--
    Mr. Roy. I would defer to my colleague from Louisiana. My 
instinct would be to allow the Witness, out of deference and 
respect for his time, to allow the Witness to go ahead and 
testify, and then, we will be happy to join in after.
    I apologize. I don't proxy vote. I was down on the floor of 
the House. So, sorry I wasn't back here.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Roy.
    Mr. Johnson, is that okay with you, to have Mr. Garcia 
testify now?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Perfectly fine, my friend.
    Then, let me just say briefly, my staff told me that you 
were making some comments about Republicans not being on, but 
we were, as you know, in the middle of a vote series, and we 
don't vote by proxy. So, we had to be on the floor.
    So, I am happy to let Mr. Garcia testify. Go ahead.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
    Many of you do vote by proxy, though. You just have a 
lawsuit, but many of you do use that.
    Mr. Garcia, you are to be recognized now. I don't have my 
material before me. I know you represent LULAC, and you have 
represented them over the years. You are recognized for five 
minutes, sir.

                  STATEMENT OF DOMINGO GARCIA

    Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
    My name is Domingo Garcia, and I am from Dallas, Texas. I 
am the National President of LULAC, the League of United Latin 
American Citizens, the nation's oldest Latino civil rights 
organization and the largest.
    We are here because, unfortunately, since 1970, we have had 
to file suits in Texas and all over the country to protect the 
voting rights of Mexican Americans and Latinos throughout the 
United States and Puerto Rico.
    I am going to talk to you a little bit primarily about 
Texas. From 2010-2020, 90 percent of the population growth in 
Texas was predominantly Latino and people of color. As a result 
of that, Texas was the only State that got two congressional 
districts. We would have assumed that, because of the large 
Latino growth, that we would have had two Latino-opportunity 
Congressional Districts in Texas. After the meetings of the 
Texas legislature--I testified there; we gave the numbers--even 
though Latino districts could have been created in Dallas--Fort 
Worth; in Harris County, Houston, and in South Central Texas 
around Austin--San Antonio, no districts were created.
    Literally, you could have just made squares; you could have 
made triangles, and you would have created Latino-opportunity 
districts, because we are, Texas is now a majority-minority 
State, one of only six in the country. That didn't happen.
    What happened was you had extreme weaponization of 
gerrymandering for political purposes. By the way, we are not 
partisan. We don't support Democrats or Republicans. We just 
believe in fairness and equity in the process. So, whether it 
is Democrats doing it to the Republicans, or Republicans doing 
it to the Democrats, our concern is just that everybody has a 
seat or an opportunity to have a seat at the table. That did 
not occur during this congressional redistricting in Texas.
    As a result, we believe that the plans that were adopted by 
Texas in regard to Congress, the State Senate, the State House, 
and the State Board of Education were intentionally 
discriminatory. You have to go out of your way and create 
wiggle lines, the gerrymandering that we learn about in social 
studies courses about what used to happen in the 1890s in New 
York. Well, that is happening in 2022 in Texas.
    We believe that the only way we can protect the voting 
rights of Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans in 
the entire country is by passing protections that will take 
care of Latinos.
    For example, Congressman Roy, I know you are from Texas. 
Look, I was a former State Representative. Texas had an only-
White primary. Texas had a poll tax that my grandfather paid, 
because you had to pay, I believe, $2.50 at that time--and it 
has grown to about 20 bucks today--to vote. That was to 
intentionally keep people, Black and Brown people from voting.
    Literacy tests were passed to make sure that, if you 
couldn't read or write the Texas Constitution verbatim, you 
couldn't vote. Okay? That was a test. How many jelly beans in a 
jar--to do math. All those happened.
    When we see voter ID, when you see all these efforts to 
stop people from voting, think about this, what happened in 
Texas was we used to have every senior in Harris County got an 
application, not a ballot, just an application. The Texas 
legislature passed a law saying: No, you know what? You can't 
do that. You can't get more people to vote. We have got to 
restrict the number of people that vote.
    We can't have 24-hour voting, so that people that are 
working third and fourth shifts, primarily poor working people, 
can have an opportunity to vote, just like more well-off, 
middle-class people. No, we are going to stop that.
    By the way, I am in Dallas County. If I go register 
somebody to vote in San Antonio, Austin, or Houston, I commit a 
felony. If I help my neighbor, a senior, vote by mail, and I 
help them fill out the ballot because maybe they are bedridden 
or maybe their eyes are not--I commit a felon. That is what we 
have come to in Texas--the criminalization of voting, to make 
it so difficult that they have to rig the system, instead of 
going for the hearts and minds of voters.
    The fact of the matter is Latinos are pretty much an 
independent group. We are socially conservative. We are pro-
police. We are pro-ICE. We are split on abortion. Republicans 
have made inroads.
    You can't rig the system like we saw. In the State Senate, 
there are no Latinos from Dallas County, and we have the 
largest Latino population, without a Congressional District or 
a State Senate District. In the State House, there could have 
been additional Latino districts created in Midland and Ector 
County, Tarrant County, Harris County, and Caldwell County. 
None of that happened.
    That is why we believe that we are asking that a voting 
rights bill be passed to protect the rights of every citizen to 
have a fair shot at voting, and that is not what we are seeing 
today in Texas.
    By the way, LULAC is involved in litigation in Iowa, 
Arizona, Florida. Because, unfortunately, again, we are seeing 
these voter suppression tactics to keep Jose and Maria, and 
everybody else that may be with a last name like Garcia, from 
voting, or making it so difficult that the numbers go down.
    Already, we see numbers, like for mail ballots, 50 percent 
of the mail ballots in Travis County have been rejected. Why? 
Because, for the first time, Texas required that you add your 
Social Security number or your driver's license to your 
application. Many seniors are forgetting to do that, and 
therefore, their mail ballots are being rejected. So, it is a--
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Garcia. We thank you for getting 
your technology corrected, and we appreciate your testimony.
    I want to thank Mr. Roy for his courtesies in allowing you 
to testify at that point, which I think was appropriate.
    [The statement of Mr. Garcia follows:]

   [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Cohen. Now which, Mr. Johnson or Mr. Roy? Whoever you 
choose will go first.
    Mr. Roy. All right. Well, I thank the Chair. I have a few 
questions I was going to ask, but I feel compelled to address a 
few of the things that have been discussed, in part, probably 
somewhat in my absence, and I get, understand why that's the 
case. I said I was on the floor voting.
    We're talking about proxy voting. It's not just about a 
lawsuit. Some of us believe that it is unconstitutional and 
wrong to proxy vote. We can disagree on that, but I have put my 
money where my mouth is and I'm not voting by proxy.
    That has caused all sorts of complications in my existence 
in a world where the Congress is continuing to vote by proxy. 
I've got competing engagements and I can't multitask if I'm 
voting in person. So, that is a real issue, and we ought to 
address it, and I think it's tearing apart the House of 
Representatives.
    I would also note that my colleague Mr. Johnson, comma 
Hank, not Mike, was making some comments about my alleged White 
privilege. I think it would be noteworthy, were my grandmother 
still alive, who was raised in west Texas to a single mom in a 
house with dirt and no indoor plumbing and my grandfather who 
was the same.
    My grandmother's father, who was an orphan as a result of, 
we believe, I'm not going to claim any percentage of Native 
American lineage. We believed by a family passing down that was 
the case, and that was a part of his reason for being an 
orphan. Growing up dirt poor during the depression. My great-
grandfather losing the farm. Then my dad working hard and going 
to college despite having polio, which I know the Chair can 
very much relate with.
    I would question the assertion of my, quote, ``privilege 
and White power.'' That I wouldn't comment on the absurdity of 
these race-based focus with respect to legislation on elections 
when I've been doing so my entire my life.
    Including being a lawyer on the Senate Judiciary Committee 
when I worked hard for Senator Cornyn when we were working on 
the legislation of the Voting Rights Act of 2006, which has 
been referenced here, to make very clear that it was clearly 
unconstitutional.
    That the data that is being based on was 1968 data. That 
the case was not made for the reauthorization of section 5 to 
be applied to the districts according to a formula that is 50 
years old. That it was clear it would be tossed out on its 
head. That it was then therefore tossed out on its head in 
2013.
    I'm proud to have taken part in helping draft the minority 
views, additional views, to the record to make the case. 
Because it was wrong. It was wrong then, and it would be wrong 
now. That's the reality.
    The former Representative Garcia, and I'm glad to have you 
here and I was happy to defer to you to offer your testimony. 
When we're talking about Texas law, I hear you, okay, and I've 
talked to many people experience those issues with respect to 
the horrors of poll taxes and literacy tests and what that 
meant to disenfranchise voters.
    Now, you're comparing that and analogizing. You made the 
case, sir, of what we're saying. You're making the case in 
analogizing it to voter identification. Yes, voter ID is a 
necessary tool for ensuring the integrity of ballots and 
election, particularly in Texas, where our borders are wide 
open right now.
    We've literally had a million people come to the United 
States and be released into the United States over the last 
year due to the complete and utter incompetence, and not just 
incompetence but malicious refusal to actually enforce the laws 
of the United States, to know who's in the United States.
    The rationale for having voter ID is being made by the very 
Administration who's accusing States of being racist for 
wanting to have voter identification to ensure the integrity of 
elections when they refuse to defend the sovereignty of the 
United States. Those are the facts. We know what the numbers 
are in Texas, and we see what's actually happened.
    A final point on the gentleman's commentary about Mr. 
Charlie Sifford, who I believe passed away this last year. I'm 
trying to remember my timeline, but was obviously noteworthy 
for being, and some people would call the Jackie Robinson of 
golf. We're not here to talk about golf, but I do want to raise 
an issue.
    When I was in college and was a walk-on on the golf team in 
college, there was a young man who was a dear friend who has 
since passed away, unfortunately from meningitis, viral 
meningitis while he was playing on the Canadian tour trying to 
make it, Lewis Chitengwa.
    He was the first Black to win the South African Open, and 
he was my dear friend. He broke that color barrier. We would 
talk at length. Yes, he, like other Black Americans, faced 
racism in 1990s in Virginia, and we'd have conversations about 
that.
    You want to talk about privilege, he would talk extensively 
about the privilege of being an American and the privilege of 
what it means to be an American and having faced what he faced 
in Zimbabwe and going over and winning the tournament in South 
Africa.
    I know my time is up, Mr. Chair. I'd like to try to keep to 
the clock. I'm well aware of the importance of these issues. I 
come at it from a very different perspective, however, about 
the integrity of the elections and not using race for political 
purposes.
    One final point, and I know I'm over my time and appreciate 
the indulgence, is that with respect to the--I'm sorry, I lost 
my train of thought. I had another point. So, I'll defer and 
yield back to the Chair.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Roy. If you come back with your 
thought, I'll give you an opportunity to express it.
    Mr. Roy. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Cohen. Ms. Ross has got time, Mr. Raskin has seniority, 
but I'm going to recognize Ms. Ross because she has set a John 
Kennedy picture in the screen, and I think Mr. Raskin is great 
batting cleanup.
    Ms. Ross, you're recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Ross. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. Just wanted Mr. 
Raskin to know that I got my copy of Vogue Magazine today with 
the big feature on him and his book and his family. He is not 
only an excellent Member of the Committee, but a celebrity in 
Vogue now, so congratulations to him for that.
    I also want to thank everybody who came to testify today. 
This is such an important issue. Right now, it is front of mind 
for the American people because of what's going on the Senate 
side. In North Carolina, it has been front of mind for 
centuries.
    I'm a former civil rights attorney and a State legislator 
from North Carolina, and I've witnessed first-hand efforts to 
reduce the power of minority voters in my home State through 
racial gerrymandering and voter suppression laws.
    Last week, a three-judge panel upheld North Carolina's new 
maps for U.S. Congress, the North Carolina Senate, and the 
North Carolina General Assembly. These maps are intended to 
further reduce Democratic representation, an outcome that's 
also likely to dilute the power of minority voters and reduce 
minority representation at both the State and Federal level.
    While this is not the outcome I had hoped for, the panel 
did establish key findings about the unequal nature of these 
maps and laid the foundation for the State Supreme Court to 
rule against partisan gerrymandering on appeal, under the State 
constitution.
    The recent efforts in my State to undermine the continuance 
of American democracy highlight the importance of passing 
Federal voting rights legislation to ensure that our governing 
institutions reflect the diverse communities they represent. 
It's consistent with our history.
    Finally, I want to correct a misconception that Members of 
both parties have that expanding voting rights only helps 
Democrats at the ballot box. In 2020, North Carolina offered 
the longest voting period in the country, largely because we're 
a military State. The State Board of Elections mailed absentee 
ballots 60 days before the November 3 election, earlier than 
any State.
    In-person early voting was open for 19 days prior to the 
election, and same-day voter registration was allowed at all 
early voting locations, because of a bill that I worked on when 
I was in the State legislature. Because our State made voting 
so convenient, North Carolina saw record voter turnout in 2020, 
with 75 percent of voters casting ballots.
    Because of, not despite, the ease of access to the ballots, 
Republicans secured victories across the State, including 
Donald Trump. North Carolina's experience shows that 
progressive voting laws do not uniformly benefit Democrats and 
disadvantage Republicans.
    Instead, they serve the interests of candidates from both 
parties who can most effectively energize and inspire our 
State's closely divided electorate.
    My question is for both Sherrilyn Ifill and Derrick 
Johnson. Please describe the impact of North Carolina's 
congressional and legislative maps, the current ones, on the 
voting rights of minority citizens.
    Ms. Ifill. Thank you very much for the--for the question. I 
will concede that LDF has not mounted a challenge around the 
North Carolina congressional maps, although I am familiar with 
what you have described. It very much reflects what we are 
seeing in multiple States.
    We heard reference to it in Georgia from Representative 
McBath. We are seeing this in Alabama. We've seen this in South 
Carolina. We're closely watching Louisiana, where Members of 
the LDF staff are today, testifying in Baton Rouge.
    That is the growth in the Black and Latino population in 
these States, and I guess Tom Saenz referenced this as well, is 
not being reflected in the congressional maps that are being 
drawn.
    This is the equivalent of erasing our population and the 
representation to which they are entitled and deserve. As I 
said earlier, this is not only at the congressional level, it's 
not only at the State house level, but we're also seeing it in 
county commission races, in judicial districts, in school board 
districts as well.
    This is what the project really has been about. We all know 
that gerrymandered maps get grandfathered from decade to 
decade. They constitute what becomes a permanent lockout or a 
permanent diminution of voting strength for racial minorities.
    So, when we see this going forward, when we see the failure 
to take account of the population increases that have happened, 
largely racial minority population increases within these maps, 
this is directly a threat to the full citizenship and 
representation of people who have a right to have their numbers 
properly reflected in districting maps.
    This work this year, that's what it's all about, it's about 
ensuring that we can try and--
    Mr. Cohen. Ms. Ifill, our time is up.
    Ms. Ifill. Reverse the gerrymandered districts that have 
shut our communities out of full voting strength for now 
decades.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Ross, I appreciate it. Now, I'd 
like to recognize Mr. Johnson for five minutes.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I 
apologize, we've been in and out, as Mr. Roy explained. Neither 
he nor I, many of our colleagues, Republican side, have voted 
proxy, and we do believe it's unconstitutional.
    We're litigating that, as you know. I think it would have 
been an appropriate subject for our Committee to hear at some 
point, but it was not to occur. So, apologize for being in and 
out today.
    Look, I have lost count on our Constitution Subcommittee, 
but this may be the seventh hearing I think that we've had on 
this subject in the last year. Listen, the integrity of our 
election system is of critical importance. I mean, we all agree 
on that.
    I know that people try to make this a partisan thing, but 
it should not be. Every Republican that I know, and I'm a 
former State legislator in Louisiana, I know many legislators 
on the Republican side around the country at the State level, 
and of course everyone here in Congress, all my constituents, 
the party activists, every single Republican that I know wants 
every eligible voter to participate in our elections.
    See, the thing about our party is we believe in the 
original principles of our nation, the foundational principles. 
We know that free and fair elections are central to all that.
    So, all the claims that are made, these wild accusations 
about the supposed intentions of Republican lawmakers around 
the country are just completely unfounded. You ought to take 
some time to go talk with these folks and see what they're 
really about, and what they're trying to accomplish.
    The Democrats in Congress are seeking to commandeer the 
State redistricting processes to enrich themselves politically. 
I mean, it's just--it's brazenly political, and it's obvious to 
anybody who looks into this.
    I mean, Washington Democrats are politicizing the VRA, the 
Voting Rights Act, by seeking to overturn common sense and 
lawful State election integrity reforms. Look at the example in 
Georgia. It's been discussed today from mostly one side.
    The Biden Department of Justice filed suit against the 
State of Georgia over that new election law, SB 202. That law, 
anybody at home can Google this and research it for themself. 
Don't listen to what pundits and supposed experts are saying 
about it, look at the law.
    It strengthens ballot box protections. It enhances the 
State's election integrity. That's why it was popularly 
supported there.
    One of the experts who's testified in this Committee on 
election laws stated that the DOJ's complaint, the lawsuit that 
the Biden Administration filed against that Georgia law, quote, 
``Reads more like a press release from the Democratic National 
Committee than a serious lawsuit by an apolitical Justice 
Department,'' unquote.
    This is the theme that we've returned to over and over in 
this year. When we had Attorney General Merrick Garland before 
us and all the other hearings that we've had on these subjects 
and others related to it, the people are losing faith not only 
in our election system, for all the accusations that are flying 
back and forth.
    More importantly than that, perhaps, in our entire system 
of justice, they're losing faith in our institutions. The idea 
that there is equal justice under law, that justice is blind, 
because they're seeing the Department of Justice being 
weaponized for political purposes.
    That is something that should greatly concern us. All this 
is being done for politics in Washington, and it's a shame. It 
violates our constitutional order; it violates our principles. 
It is the States that have the authority to do these things.
    The Supreme Court has ruled recently, we've covered this ad 
nauseam, that the conditions that existed in 1965 simply do not 
exist today. There is no evidence of widespread voter 
suppression or voter discrimination, or any of that. This is 
not about race at all.
    The legislators that I know, the ones that are working in 
all these States, Republican and Democrat, are trying to ensure 
that the elections are fair and free so that the people do not 
lose their faith in the integrity of the ballot box. If we lose 
that, y'all, we lose everything, and everybody should agree 
with that.
    Only have one minute left, maybe I'll ask our minority 
Witness Ms. Riordan if there's anything that's been said that 
she'd like to comment on, because I know she may not have 
another opportunity. I'll give the time to her.
    Ms. Riordan. Well, thank you for that. I just want to say 
that I really think that in my experience within the Justice 
Department, the amount of cases that we reviewed during the 
time that I was there doing sector 5 from 2000-2013, when the 
Shelby County decision was made, the amount of objections that 
we had at time, Congressman, was .36 of one percent of all the 
submissions that were submitted.
    What people don't realize is the amount of work that goes 
into making a submission to the Department of Justice, and then 
the politics that are played by the Department in reviewing 
them.
    I don't make those accusations lightly. I find it to be 
very disheartening. I will say that I don't believe that their 
actions in the past justified them getting that type of control 
over State election law again.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Very well said and I yield back. 
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I don't think you were 
here when I told you the people about Everett Dirksen, who's 
over my head and behind me. He had that argument made in 1964 
by Southern legislators that it was up to the States.
    He worked out compromises to make it acceptable to them, 
but still none of them voted for the Civil Rights or the Voting 
Rights Act, which Everett Dirksen did and all the Republicans 
did then when it was the party of Lincoln.
    I now yield--Jamie, you're not going to be our cleanup 
hitter because we now have two other powerful hitters, Ms. Bush 
and Ms. Jackson-Lee, but you're going to go at this present 
time. I recognize the Honorable Jamie Raskin for five minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chair, thank you very much. Before I begin, 
did Ms. McBath want to take a moment, or--
    Mr. Cohen. She's spoken twice, thank you. She was 
recognized, but thank you for your offer.
    Mr. Raskin. I heard my friend, Mr. Roy, right when I got 
back to the office, unfortunately, I didn't hear what prompted 
him to launch into a defense of his family and so on. I was 
moved by what he had to say.
    It reminded me that American history has been transformed 
by coalitions between African Americans and Members of other 
disadvantaged minority groups and working class White people, 
who also have been targeted for political exclusion and 
disenfranchisement.
    I'm just wondering whether, Ms. Ifill or Mr. Saenz would 
want to opine about there are certain disenfranchising 
mechanisms, like the White primaries in Texas the subject of 
Smith v. Allwright and Terry v. Adams, which were racially 
specific.
    Literacy tests I think were used that way, but there also 
were a bunch of them that were targeted at both the African 
American population and the White working class. Like poll 
taxes I think were imposed across the board.
    I just wonder, I'm not quite sure what got Mr. Roy upset 
about what someone had said, but I don't think anybody would 
deny that there has White people disenfranchised, certainly 
under the wealth and property qualifications that America began 
with.
    What we're fighting for is universal voting rights for 
everybody. So, I don't know, Ms. Ifill, Mr. Saenz, do you have 
any comment on that?
    Ms. Ifill. Yeah, let me see if I can do this very quickly, 
because Congressman Raskin, and thank you for the question. I 
feel I must respond to Congressman Johnson about the supposed 
frivolity of lawsuits challenging the Georgia voter suppression 
law.
    LDF is challenging the voter suppression law. We're also 
challenging the voter suppression law in Florida. In both 
cases, the judge in Georgia, a Trump appointee, has denied the 
State's motion to dismiss. Which tells you that these are not 
frivolous claims, these are not press releases. These are 
legitimate cases that will go forward, and the courts will 
decide the strength of those claims.
    Congressman Raskin, absolutely, and certainly many of the 
provisions that we think about, automatic voter registration, 
absentee voting, when we talk about drop boxes outside the 
board of elections, the people they most benefit are those that 
are disabled and the elderly. We should be expanding the vote 
for everyone.
    Texas's voter ID law that we successfully challenged, our 
client in that case was a student at a Texas State University 
who could no longer use her student ID to vote, but of course 
could if she had concealed gun carry permit.
    That also doesn't mean that we deny the targeting of Black 
and Brown voters that has happened in this country since we 
received the right to vote after the 13th, 14th, and 15th 
Amendment.
    The Voting Rights Act was designed to address that for a 
reason. We can't deny that history simply by pointing to the 
fact that there has been widespread oppression across the board 
of many people without wealth.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you so much for that. Mr. Saenz, did you 
want to add anything to that?
    Mr. Saenz. No, I would just add that your point is 
absolutely accurate. Voting rights laws benefit everyone. We 
see collateral disenfranchise when it comes to voter ID, which 
often a very significant impact based on class and economics.
    In Arizona, we found that the attempt to restrict voter 
registration, new registrant being required to produce a birth 
certificate, other proof of citizenship, had effects on young 
voters of all races who were choosing to register for the first 
time, and on the elderly, who had difficulty obtaining the 
proof of their citizenship.
    So, it is absolutely true that there are collateral 
disenfranchising, that voting rights laws, like all civil 
rights laws, benefit every American.
    Mr. Raskin. I think we're in this situation today because 
of the Supreme Court's successful efforts to gut the Voting 
Right Act in Shelby County v. Holder and the Brnovich decision. 
There's been a war from the bench against the Voting Rights 
Act, against civil rights legislation generally.
    Are we at a point when we can recognize that Federal 
statutes, including the most powerful voting rights statute we 
ever had, the Voting Rights of '65, are not enough and we need 
a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote? 
Because all we've got is sort of a ragtag sequence of 
antidiscrimination amendments.
    You can't discriminate on the basis of race, the 15th 
Amendment on the basis of gender, the 19th Amendment is on--
nowhere do you have what exists in most democratic 
constitutions, which is a universal grant of the right to vote 
to all citizens at every level of government.
    Is it time for us to do that? Mr. Henderson, let me start 
with you.
    Mr. Henderson. Thank you, Mr. Raskin, for the question. 
It's a very important question, and I believe you are right, 
that a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote 
for all American citizens would be a powerful tool that would 
help resolve many of the disputes that we are talking about 
now.
    Having said that, the likely adopting and ratification of 
such an amendment is virtually impossible. One need only look 
at what's going on now with an effort to restore the Voting 
Rights Act of 1965 based on the requirements imposed by the 
Supreme Court in the Shelby County decision.
    Many of us believe that the Court offered a roadmap to the 
appropriate reauthorization of that act, even if we disagreed 
with the holding itself.
    There are some who suggest that the Court cynically 
established a challenge which it knew quite well it would be 
impossible to achieve, based on the fact that there was 
inherent skepticism about the effort to really establish the 
existence of discrimination.
    We think the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate have 
helped modernize the formula that the court required be 
considered in an update of the Voting Rights Act.
    Mr. Raskin. Okay, if I could pause you there, Mr. 
Henderson, I just wanted to ask the minority Witness whether 
you would agree to a constitutional amendment establishing a 
right to all citizens to vote, Ms. Riordan.
    Ms. Riordan. Yes, I would.
    Mr. Raskin. So, and that I think would be the best answer, 
Mr. Henderson. Maybe we could get people together around the 
principle of a constitutional right to vote. I yield back, Mr. 
Chair, thank you for your indulgence.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Raskin, I appreciate it.
    Mr. Roy, are you with us again? I see your cameras on. If 
not, I was going to let him out of the sand trap that he was in 
when he left us. So, Mr. Johnson, do you have any other 
Republicans there?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I don't believe so, no.
    Mr. Cohen. Okay, well, let's go next, I guess to Ms. Bush. 
Ms. Bush, you're recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Bush. St. Louis and I thank you, Chair Cohen, for 
convening this important hearing.
    We are all in the midst of a moral crisis, and we know 
that. Last night, the nation watched as the United States 
Senate failed to advance legislation that would protect our 
fundamental and constitutional right to vote. For what? Because 
of fear, White fear. Because of power, White power.
    Fear that if and when we empower Black people, that will 
somehow disempower White people. That if we empower Brown 
people, the Brown community, that will somehow disempower White 
people.
    White people, especially White wealthy people, have long 
exercised control over our democracy, because the mere idea of 
Black folks possessing even an ounce of political power is 
viewed as a threat to the status quo.
    So, to those apathetic White folks who have yet to welcome 
love and welcome anti-racism into your hearts, my question for 
you is this: What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that we 
will end redlining? Are you afraid that we will deliver 
universal healthcare?
    Are you afraid that we will end police violence? That we 
will end the racial and gender wealth gaps? That we will 
provide safe housing for every single member of our unhoused 
community? That we will end our forever wars? Are you afraid 
that we will end mass criminalization? Are you afraid that we 
will dismantle the comfy White supremacy that many benefit 
from? Because that's the world I want to live in, and that's 
the world we should all want to live in.
    W.E.B. Du Bois once wrote, ``If there was one thing South 
Carolina feared more than bad Negro government, it was good 
Negro government.'' Perhaps this here is the fear, fear that we 
will build the kind of political power that is just, that is 
equitable, and that will lead to transformative policy change.
    Mr. Henderson, can you please explain how current voting 
rights challenges, if left unaddressed, are not only a danger 
to the participation of Black communities, but also a danger to 
the overall health of our democracy?
    Mr. Henderson. Thank you, Congresswoman Bush, for your 
question, and you are absolutely right. African American voters 
historically have been the canary in the mine. Their treatment 
as a group has helped establish the standard by which we 
evaluate voting rights on behalf of all our citizens.
    Obviously, a recognition that other groups have experienced 
discrimination is important. I think Tom Saenz and others have 
established the effect of discrimination on Latino voters. 
We've seen the same with Asian American and Native American 
voters. Subgroups like individuals with disabilities and older 
Americans will often face challenges.
    However, the use of racial considerations in trying to 
decide who is entitled to vote has created a pernicious system 
that indeed, as now being assembled, does reflect what I think 
is a Jim Crow 2.0. I know Mr. Nobile disagrees with that 
characterization, but I think there is ample justification for 
the use of that term, and it is not hyperbolic.
    My own sense is that democracy is very much imperiled right 
now. I think we have seen that in very significant ways, and I 
think the failure to enhance protections for all voters, as has 
been noted previously, will undercut the power of American 
democracy to survive the challenges we face today.
    Ms. Bush. Thank you so much, Mr. Henderson, and thank you 
for all your work. Yes, this here Black woman would 
characterize it as a Jim Crow 2.0.
    Ms. Ifill, the Legal Defense Fund has done significant work 
to end prison-based gerrymandering, which counts those who are 
incarcerated as residents of districts where they are 
incarcerated and not in districts where they are actually from, 
all the while denying many of these community Members a voice 
and a vote. This in turn distorts the census count in voting 
districts.
    What harms does present--prison gerrymandering pose to 
Black voters?
    Ms. Ifill. Yes, thank you so much, Congresswoman Bush. This 
is the place where voting discrimination intertwines with the 
longstanding discrimination in our criminal justice system that 
results in Black and Latino Americans being disproportionately 
represented in prisons around the country.
    Prisons are often located in rural majority White areas. 
They very often are places where employment opportunities exist 
for correctional officers, particularly for White correctional 
officers. When those who are incarcerated, disproportionately 
Black and Brown, are counted as part of those rural districts 
where they are not residents, then that means that all the 
collateral consequences of counting them there flow as well. 
That includes funding, plans around development and business. 
and jobs, and so on and so forth when in fact they should be 
counted in their home communities because most people who are 
in prison will go home.
    We know that when we count in the census and we do our 
districting it lasts for 10 years, but most people will be home 
before then and it essentially means that resources that should 
be allocated to communities of color in places like where I'm 
sitting right now, Baltimore City, are instead allocated to 
places in--that are rural and that are majority White.
    Ms. Bush. Yes, thank you so much. We can no longer appeal 
to the moral conscience of White moderates as Dr. King warned. 
We now know that our fight is an existential one. It demands 
that we ask ourselves fundamental questions about what we stand 
for as a country. Do we stand for White supremacy or do we 
stand for--do we stand for White supremacy or antiracism? Do we 
stand for politics or fear or politics of opportunity? That is 
what is at stake. Thank you so much, and I yield back.
    Ms. Garcia. Mr. Chair, we can't hear you, sir. You are 
muted.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
    I said if Mr. Johnson's walking the halls, if he would like 
to say anything, he would be welcome to.
    He doesn't, I guess. Anyway, I now recognize--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Yes, I will pass, Mr. Chair. I 
appreciate it. Having technical difficulties here.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
    I now recognize the lady who represents the district of 
Barbara Jordan, I believe; if not the district, the spirit, and 
one of the great leaders whose names were sponsors of the 2006 
law; it was the Fannie Lou Hamer bill as well as the Rosa Parks 
and the Barbara Jordan bill in 2006, Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee, 
for five minutes.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Chair, thank you for this timely hearing 
and thank you for reminding us of that moment in history. I was 
pleased to be able to add my predecessor and mentor the 
Honorable Barbara Jordan's name to that bill in terms of its 
absolute unity between Republicans and Democrats.
    I was crushed last night about 10:30 p.m. as a sinister Act 
was performed on the floor of the United States Senate, and 
that is the defeat of a talking filibuster that would have led 
to the opportunity for the passage of the Voting Rights Act. In 
the words of Dr. King, paraphrased, justice was crushed and 
certainly the righteousness of rolling waters did not exist.
    So, I believe that it is crucial for this hearing today, 
but also to take up the words of the President of the NAACP as 
was indicated on the floor of the Senate, ``We're not finished. 
We will continue.'' My recommendation is for the Senate to 
institute debate and to continue to place this on the floor of 
the United States Senate until it is passed. We are in a road 
that is going nowhere if we continue the pathway that we are.
    Let me start by saying that it is my belief that race is a 
crucial factor in the efforts that we have seen sadly by our 
friends on the other side of the aisle. I did not call them 
racists, but I said racism is an extreme factor in the denial 
of voting rights. I listened to the minority Witness; we 
welcome her, to describe persons at the Justice Department for 
different views as left-wing persons only because they want to 
enhance the power of the vote.
    Let me also be very clear that section 4 indicates in the 
Constitution that the Congress may at any time by law make or 
alter such regulations.
    In listening to Senator Klobuchar, I want to make sure that 
it is not the Founding Fathers' desire that it be the tyranny 
of the minority. In fact, Thomas Jefferson said it's my 
principle that the will of the majority should always prevail. 
The idle principle Republican government is the will of the 
majority. That did not occur as we proceeded. We have been 
stifled by the minority.
    So, I want to focus on the question of race and voting, if 
I might, and I want to go to Sherrilyn Ifill. In a discourse on 
the floor of the House Senator Collins--excuse me, on the 
Senate last evening tried to suggest that section 2 was a 
substitute for section 5. Certainly, Senator Ossoff did a 
beautiful job, but let us understand; and my time is short, how 
crucial it is about section 5 and that it is a poor comparison, 
though we welcome section 2, to suggest that that is the answer 
to voting rights violations.
    Ms. Ifill. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Jackson Lee. 
Sections 5 and 2 were meant to complement each other, but the 
preferred way of addressing voting discrimination was section 
5, which is to have a mechanism to catch voting discrimination 
before it is implemented and to avoid the long periods of time 
and the high cost of litigation that Tom Saenz referred to 
later.
    So, the first resort was section 5 and the [inaudible] 
process, which essentially Tom Saenz calls alternative dispute 
resolution. Let me us an example from Texas, your State.
    When Texas passed its voter ID law, we filed suit almost 
immediately. This was after the Shelby County decision removed 
pre-clearance. This was a voter ID law that Texas had been 
unable to get pre-cleared earlier. The law went into effect. We 
litigated. We ultimately won. Then we went up to the appeals 
court. Then we came back down. We ultimately completed and 
settled the case for 2018.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
    Ms. Ifill. In 2014 and 2018 that discriminatory voter ID 
law was in place. It should never have been in place and that's 
why we need section 5. When it doesn't--when it slips through 
the cracks, then we need section 2 to be able to litigate and 
challenge discriminatory voter--
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. My time is short. I want to ask 
Mr. Johnson, President of NAACP--and I know he knows that the 
Niagara Movement started in West Virginia where Senator Manchin 
is representing, and then to Wade Henderson.
    I want to get to this question of race. Not to be able to 
throw racism around, but every time voters who happen to be of 
color seem to be making a legitimate legal headway. like Texas 
for example, they have criminalized voting infractions. Please 
comment on that because we will not move forward if we cannot 
understand what the underpinnings of voter suppression is.
    Mr. President of the NAACP?
    Wade?
    Appreciate your comments. I would also appreciate the 
comments of Mr. Saenz if my President would allow them--my 
Chair to allow them to answer.
    Mr. Chair? Mr. Johnson?
    Mr. Johnson. Well, first, the vote is the currency in any 
democracy. As we've heard here, many people are conflating race 
with partisanship. For African Americans we want to fully 
engage and participate and not be criminalized nor be put in a 
partisan bucket because we want to have fair and equal 
representation and the ability to elect candidates of our 
choice.
    So, the two examples that was used, both Texas and North 
Carolina, you're seeing tremendous growth in populations in 
Texas as a result of the Latino community and in North Carolina 
of both Latino and Black community, and the representation as a 
result of redistricting is lacking.
    So, for African Americans, for the Latino community we want 
to be able to fully engage to deposit our currency in this 
democracy for clear representation and not be criminalized for 
that, not be penalized for that, but stand up as full citizens 
in this country.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
    Mr. Saenz?
    Mr. Henderson?
    Mr. Henderson. Congresswoman, thank you for the question. 
First, Derrick Johnson is a Vice-Chair of the Leadership 
Conference and I associate myself with his remarks. I'd now 
like to defer to my other Vice-Chair Tom Saenz to give him an 
opportunity to speak to that question as well.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much, Mr. Henderson. Mr. 
Saenz is welcome.
    Mr. Saenz. Thank you. As you know, your State Texas is one 
of a number of States on the cutting edge of change in this 
country, and that's demographic change that is unprecedented. 
We have the chance to demonstrate what democracies do in 
response to demographic change, and what they appropriately do 
is work to incorporate every one in the franchise and let them 
all vote when they have the right to do so. Instead, what we 
see is a reaction to demographic change, unfortunately in 
Texas, repeated in other parts of the country; that is, to 
suppress the vote, particularly of those groups that are 
becoming of a size that is viewed as a threat to the powers 
that be.
    So, this is really about the opportunity to demonstrate 
that racial demographic change can still preserve the democracy 
that we have in this country. Texas, as you know, is right at 
the cutting edge of these issues.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
    Mr. Chair, may I submit into the record these documents, 
please?
    Mr. Cohen. Without objection, so done.
    [The information follows:]


      

                     MS. JACKSON LEE FOR THE RECORD

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    Ms. Jackson Lee. May I just call their names out? ``Texas 
Election Officials are Rejecting Hundreds of Vote-by-Mail 
Applications and is Going on as We Speak.'' ``Voting Rights is 
a Constitutional Right,'' an article by myself in The Hill. 
article dealing with the putting together of two African 
American Members in the redistricting plan put together in 
September 2021. Washington Post, ``New Texas Republican Map 
Carves Jackson Lee Out.'' A statement of the mayor of the City 
of Houston about the voter registration shortage right now 
existing in the State of Texas where people cannot be 
registered because we do not have any voting card, ``Voting 
Suppression Glaring in Texas and Other States.''
    As I indicate to Ms. McBath, I thank her for her 
presentation because she too has been a victim of trying to 
eliminate people of color from the process of empowerment of 
democracy.
    I yield back, Mr. Chair. I thank you so very much.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee.
    Do any of the Members want a minute or so to either make a 
final statement or ask a final question, rebut anything, or 
submit any new data?
    Mr. Raskin, you look like you are pondering.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chair, forgive me, but I took note that 
some of our colleagues were talking about proxy voting. Again, 
I don't know what the specific context was, but now a majority 
of both the majority in the House and a majority of the 
minority in the House have cast votes, most of them repeatedly 
by proxy. I know that there was a polemical attack on proxy 
voting when the COVID-19 nightmare first began, but it seems 
like it has been well established through practice. There are 
no courts holding that we can't conduct proxy voting under our 
article 1 power to define the rules of our own proceedings. So, 
I think all that is a little bit of a red herring and an 
irrelevant distraction from what we are here to talk about 
today.
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Raskin, Mr. Roy, and Mr. Johnson came back 
to the hearing. They had gone to vote on the floor. I had noted 
that there were no Republicans to have as questioners and they 
were, understandably being in Washington, gone to vote. Mr. 
Johnson has suggested that they; and I think he meant the 
Republicans, didn't believe in proxy voting. I had commented 
that they did; that they did participate. If they [inaudible].
    Mr. Roy. Mr. Chair?
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Roy, if you would like to respond? If you--
    Mr. Roy. Yes, I don't want to waste the Committee's time on 
a topic that is tangential, but in response to my friend 
Congressman Raskin, look, I believe it is unconstitutional. I 
have not voted by proxy. That is true for a block of 
Republicans. I am an equal opportunity basher of my colleagues 
when I think that they are doing something unconstitutional. 
There are Republicans who speak with one voice and then still 
vote by proxy. I disagree with them. Mike is in the same camp, 
Johnson, I should say, from Louisiana. It puts us in an awkward 
spot the more comfortable the body gets with proxy voting.
    Then, for example, I had a speech at the University of 
Virginia and I found myself when we were voting on the 
infrastructure bill sitting in Fredericksburg waiting to be 
told are we voting or not voting on the infrastructure bill, 
because my vote might matter. So, I literally sat in a coffee 
shop in Fredericksburg for three hours waiting to know whether 
I was going to Charlottesville or coming back to the Hill.
    I just don't think it is a great way to do business. 
Obviously, I made a choice that I don't--I am not going to give 
my vote to someone else. I just wanted to add some color to why 
that matters in my view.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Roy. I appreciate that. You and 
Mr. Johnson, I don't know that either of you have ever voted by 
proxy, but the appearance Mr. Johnson was making was that 
Republicans didn't vote by proxy and I particularly noted, as 
Mr. Raskin mentioned, that now a majority of Republicans have 
at one time or another voted by proxy including three or four 
people once who voted by proxy when they went to Mar-a-Lago to 
attend a fund raiser at Mr. Trump's resort and not because of 
the reasons they are supposed to.
    Mr. Roy, I hope you get to vote by--in person for many, 
many, many years as this epidemic/pandemic will be behind us. 
You are not over 65 years old where the coronavirus is more 
potent and deadly. So, for those of us over 65 it is--we think 
this is a good idea.
    Regardless of that, anybody else have any--Mr. Roy, when I 
left you, you were in a sand trap on the 17th hold and couldn't 
remember what you were trying to come up with and speak. Did 
you ever get out of the sand trap?
    Mr. Roy. Yes, I did, but the hearing has gone on and we 
have had a good conversation. I can do--all I was going to do 
was--I am not going to go there. We have had a good--we will 
move on and move forward. I appreciate the opportunity. We are 
good and I thank you for giving me the opportunity.
    Mr. Cohen. We'll put the sand wedge back with the clubs in 
your bag.
    Anybody else have anything?
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chair?
    Mr. Cohen. If not, I want to thank all the Witnesses--
    Mr. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chair?
    Mr. Cohen. Yes, Ms. Jackson Lee, quickly.
    Mr. Lee. Ms. Butler, and Congresswoman McBath. Ms. Butler, 
are you there?
    Ms. Butler. I'm here. Yes, Congresswoman.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes, thank you so very much for your 
leadership.
    To both of you, both Congresswoman McBath, could you give 
the extraordinary impact on vulnerable voters, whether they are 
elders, whether they are young people and they happen to be 
people of color, whether they are Hispanic or African American, 
and the suppressive/oppressive bill that you have?
    Congresswoman McBath, would you just answer a simple fact? 
You represent a district, you are an African American woman, 
you did represent it well. In matching you in another district 
do you think there was some underlying thought that they might 
eliminate an African American woman in the United States 
Congress?
    So, Ms. Butler and then Congresswoman McBath.
    Ms. Butler. Thank you, Congresswoman Jackson Lee. Thank 
you. The undue burden that I've talked about this is with 
regards to vote-by-mail where people have to provide IDs. A lot 
of older people don't have the capacity to copy IDs because 
they don't have Georgia driver's license or a State-issued ID.
    The undue burden of out-of-precinct voting, that's a lot of 
things. If you don't know, a lot of people don't get their 
information timely. They can't vote out-of-precinct before 5:00 
p.m., so it puts undue burden on them.
    A lot of polling locations--just as I stated earlier in my 
testimony, we were down in Lincoln County already where they 
wanted to consolidate seven polling locations to one, giving no 
reason last night, according to the Chair, and had no plan for 
making sure people would be able to do it. Six hundred people 
signed a petition, both Black and White, that said, that they 
did not want that to happen.
    The other part is the unlimited amount of challenges that 
people can do to people's residency, of their ability to vote 
in this bill, voter suppressive bill--
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
    Ms. Butler. --where it creates a hearing process and three-
day notice for voters to respond to protect their right to 
vote. The most egregious part though is the total takeover 
process of the entire election process from removing election 
supervisors, removing the Secretary of State from his 
constitutional position as Chair of the State election board.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
    Ms. Butler. So, those are some of the things.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Thank you so very much.
    Mr. Cohen. I think our time is up. I thank you, Ms. Jackson 
Lee and everybody else.
    We have a great hearing. We have discussed a lot of issues 
and that the importance of it is serious about the Voting 
Rights Act and the place where our democracy presently rests in 
jeopardy. This Committee continues to uphold civil rights and 
voting rights.
    We thank all the panelists, all the Witnesses that have 
come before us.
    The Committee Members will have five days to submit--
legislative days to submit additional written questions to the 
Witnesses or additional materials for the record.
    So, thank you for what you have all done and God bless the 
United States of America and let's hope the filibuster does not 
kill democracy.
    With that, the hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:41 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]



      

                                APPENDIX

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