[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 39 (Thursday, March 5, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S2829]
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. Kerry, Mr. Schumer, Mr. 
        Harkin, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Brown, and Ms. Klobuchar):
  S. 528. A bill to prevent voter caging; to the Committee on Rules and 
Administration.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this week, the Nation commemorates the 49th 
anniversary of ``Bloody Sunday,'' a day which marked a crucial turning 
point in securing the right to vote for all Americans. On March 7, 
1965, in Selma, Alabama, John Lewis and his fellow civil rights 
activists marched for their right to vote but were brutally attacked by 
state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We remember the acts of 
courageous Americans who fought through the years for equality. We 
honor their legacy by reaffirming our commitment to protect the right 
to vote for all Americans.
  On the week of this important anniversary, I am pleased to join Sen. 
Whitehouse in introducing the Caging Prohibition Act of 2009. This 
legislation contains commonsense reforms to strengthen the Nation's 
ability to combat organized efforts to suppress the right to vote and 
better protect the voting rights of countless Americans.
  Senator Whitehouse and I introduced a similar bill two years ago in 
an effort to bring urgent election reform to protect voters during the 
2008 presidential election. Although the Rules Committee held a hearing 
on the measure, the bill was not reported out of Committee before the 
Senate adjourned last year. I hope the Senate will do its part to 
prevent shenanigans from disenfranchising voters during the next 
Federal election, by promptly passing this bill.
  During my three decades in the Senate, I have devoted a considerable 
portion of my work to improving democratic participation and make our 
government more accessible to all Americans. For the past two years, I 
have been delighted to have Senator Whitehouse as a partner on this 
important issue. I thank him for his leadership on preserving and 
strengthening our voting rights.
  In recent years, we have seen a surge in a particularly alarming form 
of voter suppression known as voter caging. In voter caging, a 
political organization sends mail to addresses on voter rolls, compiles 
a list of returned mail, and uses that list as grounds for partisan and 
unjustified purges or challenges of voters' eligibility. During the 
last two presidential election cycles, we have seen evidence of voter 
caging efforts emerge in numerous States, including Ohio, Florida, 
Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
  Chief among the problems with voter caging is that it threatens to 
disenfranchise voters in an unreliable manner. Rather than preventing 
votes cast by ineligible voters, far too often the practice prevents 
legitimate voters from casting their ballots. According to a recent 
report from the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, ``[V]oter 
caging lists are highly likely to include the names of many voters who 
are in fact eligible to vote.'' Of course, since government databases 
are often riddled with typos and clerical errors, these findings are 
hardly surprising.
  Even more troubling, voter caging often aims to disenfranchise 
minority voters. I recall during a Senate race in Louisiana, in 1986, a 
memorandum from the Republican National Committee concluded that hiring 
a consultant to distribute 350,000 mailings marked ``do not forward'' 
to mostly African-American districts would ``eliminate at least 60-
80,000 folks from the rolls . . . [and] could keep the black vote down 
considerably.'' That is unacceptable. That is wrong. No one's right to 
vote should be abridged, suppressed, or denied in the United States of 
America.
  The practice of voter caging chips away at core protections in our 
democracy. The right to vote, and have your vote count, is a 
foundational right because it secures the effectiveness of all other 
protections. Indeed, the very legitimacy of our government is dependent 
on the access all Americans have to the political process. That is why 
voting is the cornerstone of our democracy. Any infringement on this 
right harms the fabric of America.
  All too often, voter caging efforts have partisan goals. For example, 
the Judiciary Committee's investigation last Congress into the mass 
firings of U.S. Attorneys for political reasons shed light on how Tim 
Griffin, a former Bush White House aide, participated in a voter caging 
scheme aimed at disenfranchising African-American voters in Florida. He 
was later appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of 
Arkansas.
  Rooting out partisan voter caging tactics requires us to give Federal 
officials the tools and resources they need to investigate and 
prosecute organized efforts to suppress the right to vote. This bill 
will do exactly that.
  This legislation would prohibit challenging a person's eligibility to 
vote--or register to vote--based on a voter caging list, an unverified 
match list, or foreclosure status. A challenged voter may feel 
intimidated or discouraged, and may leave a polling site and not vote. 
In America, a person should not lose their fundamental right to vote, 
nor have that vote challenged, on the sole basis of a mistake, error, 
or because their mail failed to reach them. Similarly, as the current 
economic crisis reminds us, Americans should not have their fundamental 
right to vote jeopardized simply because they lose their jobs to 
layoffs or their homes to foreclosure.
  The bill would also require any private party who challenges the 
right of another citizen to vote--or register to vote--to set forth in 
writing, under penalty of perjury, the specific grounds for the alleged 
ineligibility. This provision deters illegitimate challenges to voters 
by requiring, at a minimum, a showing of good cause. It properly 
balances legitimate efforts to clean voting rolls with forbidding 
unreliable voter purges.
  I am pleased that this bill has the support of civil rights and 
voting rights organizations such as the Leadership Conference on Civil 
Rights, the Lawyers Community for Civil Rights under Law, the Brennan 
Center for Justice, and the People for the American Way. They 
understand that voter caging is a modern-day barrier to the ballot box 
that has created unique problems for legitimate voters for many years, 
and that a Federal ban on these undemocratic practices is necessary.
  I hope that this year all Senators will support this important 
legislation and take firm action to stamp out this intolerable voter 
suppression tactic.
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