[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 194 (Friday, December 16, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8724-S8726]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RESOLVING ISSUES AND VOTING RIGHTS

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, at the late hour, as the Senate 
continues to try to do its work, there is word that maybe--as the Good 
Book says: ``Come, let us reason together''--maybe there is some 
movement in bringing about some consensus-building so the people's work 
can be done and these issues that have kept us apart for so long can 
finally be resolved. Maybe they will be resolved only on a temporary 
basis. But at least we would be in a situation where we did not allow 
the tax cuts for Social Security payments that would be such--if those 
tax cuts did not continue, there would be an immediate amount more that 
people will have to pay out of their pocket. Maybe those will continue. 
It is certainly the right thing to do.
  It is also the right thing to do to keep unemployment compensation 
going in a time of a recession, when so many people are out of work, 
and they do not have the opportunity to get work or only get what they 
can piece together, which is not enough to sustain their families. That 
is the right thing to do. Certainly passing the funding bills to keep 
the government going past midnight tonight is clearly the right thing 
to do, instead of extraneous issues holding us up, to having us all 
wound around the axle where we can't even fund the Government of the 
United States. So maybe some reasonable minds are coming together to 
start working out these issues. I certainly hope so.
  In the meantime, what I wish to speak about is something that is even 
more pernicious and that is making it harder for our people to express 
their constitutional right of casting a vote. We have seen a pattern in 
14 States, enacting new election laws that basically are a suppression 
of voter rights. One of those States that is glaringly, dubiously at 
the top of the list as being the most severe in cutting back on 
people's ability to vote and to know the vote they have cast is going 
to be counted as they intended it--and, in the first place, making it 
so they can register to vote--that very fundamental constitutional 
right for Americans is being threatened through these laws in the 
States, including my State, of suppressing the right to vote.
  If we look at the similarities of the laws in the 14 States, we will 
see an obvious pattern. But in my State of Florida, we see the most 
severe assault on the rights of voters of all the 14 States. The 
present issue is joined in a court in the District of Columbia, a suit 
ironically brought by the State of Florida against the Department of 
Justice over the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its implementation. A 
part of that suit actually questions the constitutionality of the 
Voting Rights Act of 1965. That is a rather brazen attempt, but I think 
the courts will take care of that in short order.
  But the very issue, as brought in this new Florida elections law, 
does a number of things to cut back on the rights of voters. In the 
first place, the League of Women Voters, which has been registering 
voters for years, has stopped its registration of voters because of the 
new law. Why? Because the old law on the books for decades said that 
once an organization such as the League of Women Voters registered the 
new voters, they had 10 days to turn that in to the respective 
supervisors of elections in the 67 counties. The new elections law 
amended that to 48 hours, and they attached to that the possibility of 
a fine that could go up to $1,000 per person on the person doing the 
registration if they did not turn in the names in 48 hours. Of course, 
we had the two cases of two civics teachers in two different parts of 
the State who, being good teachers, in their government class were 
registering their students to vote and did not meet the 48-hour 
deadline and the State of Florida is looking at the possibility of 
fining these teachers. That is the height of hypocrisy. That is the 
height of an assault on the right of people to vote by impeding their 
ability to register to vote.
  The intended result is there. The League of Women Voters is just one 
organization. There are many. But it shows what has happened; that all 
the registrations that would occur of people being encouraged to 
participate in the political system is not being done and will not be 
done until this issue is settled in the courts, and that is probably 
going to be late summer. So for the period of over 1 year, since the 
passing of this new law in Florida, voters will not be registered by 
organizations such as the League of Women Voters. That is a sad 
commentary, but in fact that is what has happened. That is what has 
happened in the State of Florida.
  But that is not all. Let me tell my colleagues what else the law 
does. My colleagues remember how college students got so active for the 
first time in a Presidential election. When the Presiding Officer and I 
were coming up in college, we were taught that public service was one 
of the highest callings a person could have. We were also taught that 
to be a participant in our democracy was a civic responsibility. But 
over the intervening years, after the Vietnam war, after a number of 
other circumstances, young people got turned off to politics and 
government. Then we saw them in this past Presidential election 
becoming energized once again. They went down in the cities where they 
went to school and they registered in great numbers. Then, on election 
day, they turned out in great numbers. Do my colleagues know what the 
State of Florida did in passing the

[[Page S8725]]

new elections law? They changed the law which said that when a college 
student goes down there on election day to vote and they bring out 
their identification to show they are who they say they are and they 
compare their driver's license identification and address to the voting 
registration in the college town, if that driver's license, which 
likely shows their parents' address, if it is in a different county, 
they will not give them a ballot. They will give them a provisional 
ballot. As a result, we saw in the last Presidential election in 
Florida half the provisional ballots cast were not counted.
  This is a blatant attempt to cut out a certain element or to make it 
more difficult, all under the guise that they are trying to weed out 
fraud. We haven't had a lot of voter fraud in our State of Florida, and 
I daresay we would find the same in the other 13 States that enacted 
these very repressive laws.
  But that is not all. The law goes on further to restrict voters' 
rights by cutting back on the number of days of early voting. Why did 
we have early voting? In our State, we went through the trauma of the 
Presidential election of 2000, when there was so much confusion about 
whether the ballot was intended to be this way, and people were 
confused with the way the ballot was constructed. It went on and on and 
on. We know the high drama that ended in the Supreme Court of Bush v. 
Gore. Because of that trauma, many State legislatures decided to try to 
make it easier to vote. One way to vote so there was less confusion was 
to allow what other States have done, which is to let part of the 
voting occur before election day--early voting. Then a person can take 
their time going in. People don't have to be confined to voting within 
a 12-hour period from 7 o'clock in the morning until 7 o'clock at 
night, with the long lines and perhaps inclement weather, with a 
pouring down rainstorm or snowstorm, to inhibit people's ability to 
exercise their right to vote.
  So legislatures across this country started enacting early voting. In 
Florida, that early voting period was 2 weeks. The 2 weeks went all the 
way up through the Sunday before the Tuesday election. Lo and behold, 
in the last Presidential election, because of early voting, 40 percent 
of the electorate of Florida voted before election day.
  You certainly know the supervisors of election liked that because 
then on the election day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., there was 60 percent 
of the vote--not 100 percent of the vote--and, therefore, it was much 
more manageable, even though there was an extremely high turnout 
because it was in a Presidential election.
  Well, by constricting, as the Florida law did, from 14 days to 8 
days, they are limiting that ability. They cut it back. Instead of the 
Sunday before the Tuesday election, the last day of the eighth day will 
be the Saturday before the Tuesday election.
  On the basis of the experience of the last decade, guess who voted in 
record numbers on the Sunday before the Tuesday election after church. 
Certain minority groups, in record numbers. Therefore, it is again an 
attempt at suppressing that particular vote.
  Why cannot we use walking-around common sense that would say we want 
to help people, to facilitate people, to make it easier for them to 
cast their vote, make it easier for them to register to vote; and then, 
once they have cast that vote, to do it in a manner where they know 
exactly what they are doing, lessen the amount of mistakes, and have 
the security of mind of knowing that the vote was going to be counted 
as they intended it? Yet we see laws have been passed in a number of 
States to the contrary.
  It is my hope--it is the hope of a lot of people across this country, 
who care about one of the most fundamental rights of being a citizen of 
the United States of America: the right to vote; a right, a 
constitutional right that casts us in contrast to a lot of other 
countries on the face of planet Earth--it is my hope, as the court 
deliberates and renders its judgment, the Constitution of the United 
States will be upheld.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I previously filed committee allocations 
and budgetary aggregates pursuant to section 106 of the Budget Control 
Act of 2011. Today, I am further adjusting some of those levels, 
specifically the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations for 
fiscal year 2012 and the budgetary aggregates for fiscal year 2012.
  Section 101 of the Budget Control Act allows for various adjustments 
to the statutory limits on discretionary spending, while section 106(d) 
allows the Chairman of the Budget Committee to make revisions to 
allocations, aggregates, and levels consistent with those adjustments. 
The Senate will soon be considering the conference report to accompany 
H.R. 2055, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012, as well as H.R. 
3672, the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2012. I previously made 
adjustments pursuant to the Budget Control Act to the allocation to the 
Committee on Appropriations and to the spending aggregates for items 
contained in H.R. 2055 and H.R. 3672, including funding designated for 
overseas contingency operations, disaster relief, emergencies, and 
program integrity. I am now revising those prior adjustments to reflect 
the final amounts contained in the two pieces of legislation. When 
compared to my previous adjustments, the combined effect of H.R. 2055 
and H.R. 3672 is to increase budget authority by $2.302 billion and 
lower outlays by $0.286 billion in 2012.
  With these revisions, I have now made adjustments to budget authority 
in 2012 pursuant to the Budget Control Act of $137.48 billion. That 
total breaks down as follows: $126.544 billion for overseas contingency 
operations, $10.453 billion for disaster relief, and $0.483 billion for 
program integrity initiatives.
  I ask unanimous consent that the following tables detailing the 
changes to the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and the 
budgetary aggregates be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                          BUDGETARY AGGREGATES
 (Pursuant to section 106(b)(1)(C) of the Budget Control Act of 2011 and
          section 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                $s in millions                      2011         2012
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Spending Aggregates:
    Budget Authority..........................    3,070,885    2,983,398
    Outlays...................................    3,161,974    3,047,189
Adjustments:
    Budget Authority..........................            0        2,302
    Outlays...................................            0         -286
Revised Spending Aggregates:
    Budget Authority..........................    3,070,885    2,985,700
    Outlays...................................    3,161,974    3,046,903
------------------------------------------------------------------------


 FURTHER REVISIONS TO THE BUDGET AUTHORITY AND OUTLAY ALLOCATIONS TO THE
                       COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
 (Pursuant to section 106 of the Budget Control Act of 2011 and section
              302 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                     Current                   Revised
          $s in millions           Allocation/   Adjustment  Allocation/
                                      Limit                     Limit
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal Year 2011:
    General Purpose Discretionary    1,211,141            0    1,211,141
     Budget Authority............
    General Purpose Discretionary    1,391,055            0    1,391,055
     Outlays.....................
Fiscal Year 2012:
    Security Discretionary Budget      814,744        2,200      816,944
     Authority...................
    Nonsecurity Discretionary          363,434          102      363,536
     Budget Authority............
    General Purpose Discretionary    1,327,925         -286    1,327,639
     Outlays.....................
Memorandum: Cumulative
 Adjustments, Fiscal Year 2012:
    Security Discretionary Budget          n/a      132,944          n/a
     Authority...................
    Nonsecurity Discretionary              n/a        4,536          n/a
     Budget Authority............
    General Purpose Discretionary          n/a       65,639          n/a
     Outlays.....................
------------------------------------------------------------------------


              DETAIL ON ADJUSTMENTS TO FISCAL YEAR 2012 ALLOCATIONS TO COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                           (Pursuant to Section 106 of the Budget Control Act of 2011)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                     Overseas
         $s in billions               Program        Disaster        Emergency      Contingency        Total
                                     Integrity        Relief                        Operations
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Combined adjustments for H.R.
 2055 and H.R. 3672:
    Budget Authority............          -0.410           2.712           0.000           0.000           2.302
    Outlays.....................          -0.359           0.213           0.007          -0.147          -0.286
Memorandum 1: Breakdown of Above
 Adjustments by Category:
    Security Budget Authority...           0.000           2.200           0.000           0.000          2.2000
    Nonsecurity Budget Authority          -0.410           0.512           0.000           0.000           0.102

[[Page S8726]]

 
    General Purpose Outlays.....          -0.359           0.213           0.007          -0.147          -0.286
    Memorandum 2: Cumulative
     Adjustments (Includes
     Previously Filed
     Adjustments):
    Budget Authority............           0.483          10.453           0.000         126.544         137.480
    Outlays.....................           0.415           1.803           0.000          63.421          65.639
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