[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 170 (Monday, November 5, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13772-S13773]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. WHITEHOUSE (for himself, Mr. Leahy, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. 
        Feingold, Mr. Nelson of Florida, Mr. Brown, Ms. Klobuchar, Mrs. 
        Clinton, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Obama, Mr. Schumer, and 
        Mr. Dodd):
  S. 2305. A bill to prevent voter caging, to the Committee on Rules 
and Administration.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is an unfortunate reality that with 
so much at stake in the ballot box, organized efforts to suppress the 
vote go nearly as far back as the right to vote itself. These efforts 
have cast a shadow over what Justice Earl Warren called ``the essence 
of a Democratic society'': the right to vote freely for the candidate 
of one's choice.

[[Page S13773]]

  The first voter suppression in America was direct: blanket 
restrictions based on race, based on gender, based on class. Over the 
years, these overt efforts were eventually replaced by more indirect 
and nefarious means: poll taxes, literacy tests, Whites-only primaries, 
and myriad other disenfranchisement laws aimed directly at minority 
voters. These crafty legal obstacles were often supplemented by blunt 
physical violence. But despite the many and varied efforts to impede 
the franchise, American democracy has shown an extraordinary 
resilience--and the American people have shown an abiding dedication, 
sometimes paying with life and limb, to defend the right of their 
fellow citizens to vote.
  This Senate, of course, has a checkered past on voting rights. For 
many years, the Senate is where civil rights bills came to die, stalled 
by filibusters and tangled in parliamentary technique. Eventually, of 
course, the tide turned, and Congress ushered in a series of laws that 
remain among the most important ever enacted: the 24th amendment 
banning poll taxes; the Civil Rights Act; and the Voting Rights Act of 
1965, which banned literacy tests, authorized the Attorney General to 
appoint Federal voting examiners to ensure fair administration of 
elections, and required the Federal Government to ``pre-clear'' certain 
changes in the voting laws of local jurisdictions.
  That law has been improved and reauthorized a number of times--as 
recently as last year--and is a cornerstone of our democracy. 
Nevertheless, as we all know, efforts to suppress the vote persist and 
continue to erode the promise of democracy for many Americans. For 
example, in the last election cycle, we saw organized efforts to 
deceive voters by sending out fliers with false information about the 
location of polling places or with phony endorsements, we saw threats 
that immigrants could be imprisoned if they voted.
  The Judiciary Committee, under the wise leadership of Chairman Leahy, 
has responded with the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation 
Prevention Act, which would criminalize various forms of voter 
intimidation and election misinformation.
  In recent years, we have also seen the rise of another voter 
suppression tactic, which has come to be known as ``vote caging.'' 
Caging is a voter suppression tactic whereby a political campaign sends 
mail marked ``do not forward/return to sender'' to a targeted group of 
voters--often targeted into minority neighborhoods. The campaign then 
challenges the right of those citizens whose mail was returned as 
``undeliverable'' on the grounds that the voter does not live at the 
registered address. Of course, as the Presiding Officer knows, there 
are many reasons why a piece of mail might be ``returned to sender'' 
that have nothing whatsoever to do with the voter's eligibility. For 
example, a voter might be an active member of the armed services and 
stationed far from home or a student lawfully registered at their 
parents' address. Even a typographical error during entry of the 
voter's registration information might result in a ``false negative.'' 
Nevertheless, these individuals end up facing a challenge to their vote 
and possibly losing their right to vote.
  Caging came into the media spotlight this summer during Congress's 
investigation into the political dismissal of U.S. attorneys, but this 
practice is not new, and it is not rare. In fact, since 1982, the 
Republican National Committee has been operating under a consent 
decree, filed in New Jersey U.S. District Court, which states that the 
RNC shall ``refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities in 
polling places or election districts where the racial or ethnic 
composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct, 
or the actual conduct of, such activities.''
  This consent decree was entered into after the Republican National 
Committee, during the 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial election, initiated 
a massive voter-caging operation, sending mailers marked ``do not 
forward'' to voters in predominantly African-American and Latino 
neighborhoods throughout the State. The Republican National Committee 
then compiled a caging list based solely on the returned letters and 
challenged these voters at the polls. They did it again in Louisiana, 
in 1986, when the Republican National Committee hired a consultant to 
send 350,000 pieces of mail marked ``do not forward'' to districts that 
were mostly African American, and the consent decree was then modified 
to require the U.S. District Court in New Jersey to preclear any so-
called ballot security programs undertaken by the Republican National 
Committee.
  However, in part because the Federal consent decree does not apply to 
State parties or other campaigns, caging has continued. During the past 
few election cycles, there has been credible evidence of caging in 
Ohio, in Florida, in Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. Not every caging 
operation has been successful, but the failure of a voter suppression 
attempt is no excuse for it. Therefore, I am introducing the Caging 
Prohibition Act, which would prohibit challenging a person's 
eligibility to vote--or to register to vote--based on a caging list. 
Simply put, eligible voters should not fear their right to vote might 
be challenged at the polls because a single piece of mail never reached 
them.
  The bill would also require any private party who challenges the 
right of another citizen to vote--or to register to vote--to set forth 
in writing, under penalty of perjury, the specific grounds for the 
alleged ineligibility. The principle here is simple: If you are going 
to challenge one of your fellow citizen's right to vote, you should at 
least have cause and be willing to stand behind it.
  I am very proud of the extraordinary group of Senators who have 
agreed to be original cosponsors of this piece of legislation: Chairman 
Leahy of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Feinstein, Senator Dodd, 
Senator Kerry, Senator Feingold, Senator Schumer, Senator Nelson of 
Florida, Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, Senator Menendez, Senator 
Brown, and Senator Klobuchar. I was proud to work closely with the 
Brennan Center for Social Justice and the Lawyers Committee for Civil 
Rights Under Law to develop the language of this bill. I would also 
like to thank People for the American Way for its support of this 
legislation.
  In the 1964 case of Reynolds v. Sims, the U.S. Supreme Court stated:

       [T]he right to exercise the franchise in a free and 
     unimpaired matter is preservative of other basic civil and 
     political rights. . . .

  In other words, every right we have depends upon the right to vote. 
Organized voter-suppression efforts, including vote-caging schemes, 
infringe on this right and undermine our democracy. Congress should 
rise to the occasion and say ``enough is enough'' to vote caging.
  I thank my many distinguished colleagues who have cosponsored this 
bill, and I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in 
stopping this nefarious voter suppression activity.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________