[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 10 (Thursday, January 30, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S831-S832]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page S831]]



                  VOTING RIGHTS OF MILITARY PERSONNEL

  Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, let me now turn to the subject that I 
came to the floor to speak on. Our colleague from Alabama will be here 
later. Let me explain, if I may, this problem and where we are in the 
discussion and why this is a very important issue for all 100 Members 
of the Senate and for all 260 million Americans.
  We have an all-volunteer military force. We ask young men and women, 
in putting on the uniform of this country, to serve all over the world 
far away from home in lonely places. We ask them to defend our freedom 
and independence and our interests. We sometimes call upon them to give 
their lives in the service of our country. I am not aware that ever 
before in the history of America has there been any serious challenge, 
up until the case I am about to talk about, of the right of our 
military personnel to vote.
  My dad was a sergeant in the Army; a career soldier. Like many people 
in the military, my dad decided where he wanted to declare as his legal 
residence. Millions of people wearing the uniform of the country over 
the history of our country since they serve all over the world tend to 
pick an area as their legal residence with the objective of coming back 
there to live when they get out of the service, or at least to have a 
place-holder as their identity with the very country they serve.
  We have a case now before the Federal court in my home State of Texas 
in Val Verde County, Del Rio, which is the county where Laughlin Air 
Force Base is located, where we have the Texas Rural Legal Aid, which 
is predominantly funded by the Federal taxpayer. They, in clear 
violation of the law based on the provisions of the appropriations bill 
which we passed on the floor of the Senate last year which prohibited 
them from engaging in lawsuits related to political activity, have 
filed a lawsuit challenging the right of military personnel who are 
registered to vote in Val Verde County but who are not currently 
residing in the county during their military service to have their 
votes counted. Interestingly enough, they say, ``Oh, you have a right 
to vote for President. You have a right to vote for Senate or Congress. 
But you do not have a right to vote in county elections.''

  This is the first time that I am aware of that this challenge has 
ever been made. The challenge is based on the Voting Rights Act, 
interestingly enough, because the argument is made that the roughly 800 
military absentee ballots were cast by predominantly white voters and 
that the makeup of the general electorate was majority Hispanic and 
therefore there has been a violation of the Voting Rights Act by the 
fact that these absentee ballots have diluted minority voting strength.
  I am not here today to testify what the racial makeup is of the 
electorate in Val Verde County. I do not know the exact numbers. I do 
not have any idea what the racial makeup is of the 800 absentee 
ballots. But the issue is, Do our warriors have a right to vote? Do 
those who protect our freedom have the basic guarantee of exercising 
that freedom?
  As a result, according to the claimants in this lawsuit, of these 800 
absentee ballots, 2 Republicans were elected. Their argument is that if 
you do not count these 800 absentee ballots from military personnel, 2 
Democrats would have been elected.
  Let me say, Madam President, I do not know that is the case, and that 
is not really the issue here. The issue here is the right of people to 
vote.
  Let me, before going further, say that when the Legal Services 
Corporation was notified that Texas Rural Legal Aid, their grantee in 
Texas, had violated the law, they asked Texas Rural Legal Aid to give 
them an explanation by a certain deadline. They then asked Texas Rural 
Legal Aid to cease and desist. What Texas Rural Legal Aid has done, 
having done all of the workup for the case, is they have now moved to 
the position of being expert witnesses. This is clearly violating the 
intent of Congress. I want to put my colleagues on notice that God did 
not decree that appropriations bills have to pass, and we are going to 
address this issue in the upcoming Commerce-State-Justice 
appropriations bill. And unless we can get satisfaction that the Legal 
Services Corporation is going to abide by the law, those who are ready 
to pass that bill without those guarantees better be ready to get 60 
votes.
  Let me turn to the point I wanted to make today. I discovered 
yesterday that the Legal Services Corporation through their grantee, 
Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc., sent out a questionnaire to 800 American 
warriors stationed all over the world, and it has this big official 
heading of ``In the United States District Court for the Western 
District of Texas,'' and then it has all of this legalese. Then it has 
a questionnaire that in single space form is 23 pages long encompassing 
54 comprehensive questions, many with multiple parts, and someone has 
to fill it out and they have to get it notarized where they are 
swearing under oath.
  I would like to give you an indication from this questionnaire of the 
kind of things that are being asked, and I have up here a blowup of one 
little part of question 21. Imagine, you are in Berlin or you are in 
Korea. You have a job to do there. You are manning a Patriot battery in 
Korea. Your family is at home. And you get a document 23 pages long 
telling you that you have 3 days to fill it out.
  Just look at these questions. These are the people who exercised 
their right to vote, something we encourage people to do. So this 
warrior is in South Korea defending the frontiers of freedom and they 
get this questionnaire. And this is just one section of one of the 50-
odd questions:

       What is the complete address of the place where your spouse 
     lived on November 5, 1996? If it is located outside the 
     territorial limits of the United States please also indicate 
     the last place your spouse resided which was in the 
     territorial limits of the United States.
       Did your spouse usually sleep there at night? Yes. No. If 
     no, what is the address where your spouse sleeps at night?
       Approximately how long (expressed in months, days, and 
     years) has your spouse slept at this address?
       If your spouse did not then or does not now usually sleep 
     at this address explain the reason(s) your spouse does not do 
     so.

  Is there no shame? Is there no shame? The Federal judge who approved 
this questionnaire ought to be embarrassed--ought to be embarrassed. It 
is outrageous that taxpayer money was used to send out a questionnaire 
to our warriors who are out defending freedom all over the world asking 
them because they dared to vote where their husband or wife sleeps at 
night. Madam President, this is absolutely outrageous.
  We will shortly have a letter signed by the majority of the Members 
of the Senate urging our Attorney General to enter this case. We are 
dealing with two local candidates. I do not have any real knowledge of 
either one of them. I do not know what kind of attorney they have. I do 
not know how good a job they are doing presenting their case. But it 
seems to me that this is a fundamental issue: do people who wear the 
uniform of this country have a right to vote in the location that they 
can choose as their legal residence?
  I obviously believe they do. It turns our whole political system on 
its head. To suggest that someone who has chosen Val Verde County as 
their legal residence while they are serving in the Air Force all 
around the world has less right to vote there because their race may be 
different from the race that someone claims to make up the population 
of that region is clearly outrageous, is a national issue of profound 
importance. I want the Attorney General of the United States of America 
to enter this case and defend the rights of our warriors to vote. And 
if they are voting and elected one candidate and defeated another, is 
that not what votes are about? Do we not each cast our vote believing 
that it might make a difference?
  Madam President, I do not know whether or not it made any difference. 
I do not know the racial makeup of the 800 people who voted absentee 
who are in the Air Force, who have claimed Val Verde as their legal 
residence. I do not know how that changes the makeup of the electorate 
or racial basis, and I do not care. Our society is too preoccupied with 
race. The whole reason that this is before a Federal judge is that race 
is being used as an issue to take what is basically a voting rights 
issue, which is a State of Texas issue, and elevate it to the Federal 
Court based on a claim about the ethnic makeup of members of the 
military who voted absentee.
  I believe this is a very serious issue. I believe it is a terrible 
indictment of

[[Page S832]]

the Clinton administration, that they have not intervened in this case. 
The Secretary of State of the State of Texas, the chief elections 
official of our State, has said that this lawsuit clearly in no way 
represents the election laws of our State. Our Attorney General has 
said that requiring this kind of questionnaire and documentation turns 
the whole election system on its head. The people who did not vote 
absentee who are not in the military received no such questionnaire.
  Let me tell you what this questionnaire is about. This questionnaire 
is about voter intimidation. That is what this questionnaire is about. 
You imagine, if you are manning a military weapons system in South 
Korea and you took the time to vote in your elections in the county you 
claim is your legal residence and you get a 23-page legal document with 
54 questions, many of which have numerous subquestions asking you where 
your wife sleeps at night or where your husband sleeps at night, and if 
your spouse does not sleep where you do, why not.
  What do you think this is going to do to their willingness to vote in 
the next election? This is as clear a case of voter intimidation as it 
would be to have a literacy test written in Chinese. The clear 
objective of this questionnaire is to intimidate voters and not just 
any voters--people who wear the uniform of this country and who defend 
the very freedoms that we are now seeing the Federal Government through 
the Legal Services Corporation seek to deny them.
  Madam President, I think this is one of the clearest outrages that I 
have seen in my period of time in public service. I think it is 
something that has to be stopped. I want my colleagues to know that 
since this is occurring in my State, and I speak for Senator Hutchison 
on this issue, we intend to see this fixed. I want to call on our 
Attorney General, Janet Reno--and let me say I had a very nice talk 
with her yesterday. She has promised me that she will look at this on 
an expedited basis. We had previously sent her a letter over a week 
ago.
  My concern here is that we are talking about two locally elected 
officials who have been barred from taking office. They won the 
election, nobody doubts that. But they have been barred from taking 
office while Texas Rural Legal Aid, funded by the Legal Services 
Corporation, tries to intimidate military personnel who voted.
  I don't know whether they can afford counsel. I don't know how good a 
job they are doing defending the right of our warriors to vote. I want 
the full weight of the Attorney General brought into this issue. Do our 
warriors serving in the military have a right to vote in that area that 
they choose to designate as their legal residence? Let me remind my 
colleagues, you don't have to own a home to be a legal resident. You 
don't have to actually reside there if you are in the military. You 
simply have to make a designation.
  I see this as voter intimidation. I see it as a gross abuse of the 
Voting Rights Act. I cannot imagine that we would maintain a military 
facility in a county that did not let our military personnel vote. I 
would not--I don't care where it is--I would not support spending one 
dime to keep a military facility in a county that denied the right of 
military personnel to vote.
  I think the time has come to make it clear that this old deal of 
abusing military personnel has to end. From the beginning of the 
Republic, we have wanted Washington and Uncle Sam to send the soldier 
boys out to build the fort, to buy our goods, and then they are abused. 
This is one of the worst cases of abuse that I have ever seen, and I am 
going to do everything I can, everything within my power, to see that 
this is fixed.
  Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and Coast Guard personnel 
have a right to choose a legal residence.
  I want to read, in concluding, a quote from Maj. Paul Smith. Maj. 
Paul Smith is in the Air Force. He grew up in Del Rio. He attended high 
school there. He went off to college, and then he came back to Laughlin 
to do pilot training. He declares Val Verde County as his residence.
  We have been doing this since the Constitution was written. From the 
colonial period, we have allowed people wearing the uniform of the 
country, serving around the continent at first and now all over the 
world, to designate where they are going to exercise their legal 
rights.
  Maj. Paul Smith grew up in Val Verde County in Del Rio, attended high 
school there, went to pilot training there, and he says he is a 
resident of and chooses to vote in Del Rio. I say he has that right.
  Here is what he said about this document sent out by Texas Rural 
Legal Aid and the Legal Services Corporation demanding to know where 
his wife sleeps at night. He said: ``This really infuriates me. I'm 
serving my country, putting my life on the line, protecting the right 
to vote. If they throw my vote out, well, that's not good.''
  It sure is not good, and it is not going to happen. It is not going 
to happen.
  So I want to thank my colleagues for giving me this time. I want to 
call again on the Attorney General to enter this case. Defend the right 
of those who wear the uniform of this country to vote, whatever their 
race is, however they vote. The issue here is not race. The issue is 
not who won and who lost elections. The issue is, do people in the 
military, when they are moving all over the country and all over the 
planet, have a right to designate an area where they want to exercise 
their right to vote? It seems to me you cannot be more basic than that, 
and it doesn't matter what the other factors are in this case.
  If somebody voted illegally, throw their vote out. But to indict 
every military personnel who voted absentee because their vote might 
have changed the racial composition of the election, and to send them 
an intimidating legal document demanding they answer it in 3 days, 
asking where their spouse slept, it seems to me is clear, unadulterated 
voter intimidation, and it is something that needs to be stopped. I 
yield the floor.
  Mr. SESSIONS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I have listened with growing concern 
and really anger at the remarks of the Senator from Texas. I agree with 
him. It is a cause of great concern to me. I served 15 years in the 
U.S. Department of Justice. I have served in the Army Reserve as a 
judge advocate. My responsibilities in that capacity were to protect 
the rights of servicemen and all their responsibilities, enforcing the 
Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act so that those service people can 
maintain their rights in their communities and not be abused while they 
were serving their country on active duty.
  To me, this is a very unhealthy action. It outrages me for three 
particular reasons.
  First of all, taxpayers' money was used for it. Legal Services 
Corporation lawyers actually going into court and seeking to deny 
soldiers, sailors and airmen the right to vote. It is fundamentally 
wrong, it is offensive to me, and I am glad the Senator has spoken out 
aggressively about it.
  The Legal Services Corporation has had a history of abusing its 
charter. Time and time and time again, they are caught and held to 
account, and they back off and say, ``Oh, we're sorry, we made a 
mistake, it won't happen again.'' But it has happened again and again 
and again, in my experience, and I think we ought not to forget that.

  I also want to say it is particularly galling to me that the votes 
they seek to cancel are those of soldiers, sailors, and airmen and 
airwomen who are serving our country abroad and throughout this Nation. 
I firmly and strongly believe they ought to be able to vote in the 
location they choose as their residence and be able to participate in 
the votes at that time.
  Finally, as an individual who served for 15 years in the U.S. 
Department of Justice, a tenure I treasure greatly, I think it is 
incumbent upon the Attorney General to take firm and quick action to 
join the side of those service men and women who are entitled to vote 
and have their vote counted. I think they ought to intervene in this 
case on the side of the servicemen and help make sure that justice is 
done.
  I thank Senator Gramm for his remarks and for calling this to the 
attention of the country. I think it is an important issue.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hutchinson). The Senator from Minnesota is 
recognized.
  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I have two quick orders of business.
  
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