[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 103 (Thursday, June 25, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4641-S4642]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 VOTING RIGHTS ADVANCEMENT ACT OF 2015

  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I support the Voting Rights Advancement 
Act of 2015, an important step on the road to protecting the right to 
vote for all Americans. It responds to a recent Supreme Court ruling 
that rolled back critical voting protections that had proven effective 
for decades and that Congress had reauthorized several times.
  This landmark legislation would reaffirm the importance of the vote 
as a pillar of our democracy and restore a powerful shield to combat 
voting discrimination. I thank Senator Leahy for his leadership on this 
bill, and I am proud to be an original cosponsor of a bill that 
protects access to the ballot box for all American citizens.
  Mr. President, 50 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law 
the Voting Rights Act of 1965, legislation that he called ``a triumph 
for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any 
battlefield.'' At the time he signed the bill into law, millions of 
Americans were denied the right to vote based on the color of their 
skin.

[[Page S4642]]

  President Johnson called this ``a clear and simple wrong'' and 
acknowledged that the Voting Rights Act's ``only purpose is to right 
that wrong.'' With the stroke of a pen, President Johnson enacted a 
bill that threw open the doors of democracy for all Americans and 
promised that the precious right to vote would be protected.
  The United States has had a long and bumpy road to even achieving 
that promise. In the decades before the Voting Rights Act, Blacks had 
been denied their right to vote and participate in the political 
process. They were harassed and intimidated from going to the polls. 
Ordinary Americans who marched for themselves or their fellow citizens 
to exercise the right to vote were beaten, arrested, jailed, or even 
murdered.
  On June 21, 1964, 51 years ago this week, three civil rights 
workers--two white young men from New York City and one black 
Mississippian--were killed in Mississippi by the Ku Klux Klan simply 
for trying to help register African Americans to vote. Their sacrifice 
inspired countless others to fight to make our union more perfect. Even 
in my home State, in Cherry Hill, NJ, stands a monument that pays 
tribute to these three civil rights workers who died in the struggle 
for equality.
  Few things made African Americans feel less equal in America than 
being deprived of the basic right of citizenship--the right to vote. 
They even suffered the indignity of having to count beans in a barrel, 
take a literacy test, pay a poll tax, or recite from memory the 
preamble to the Constitution without a glitch just to cast a ballot. As 
a result of disenfranchising tactics, no Black southerner served in 
Congress from 1901 to 1973. For decades, the promises of liberty and 
justice for all embedded in our national charter were simply words on 
paper.
  But the Voting Rights Act changed America. By the end of 1966, 1 year 
after it became law, only 4 out of the traditional 13 Southern States 
had less than 50 percent of African Americans registered to vote. In 
Mississippi alone, Black voter turnout increased from 6 percent in 1964 
to 59 percent in 1969. Throughout the South, and indeed our entire 
country, Blacks and Latinos were elected into public office in 
significant numbers.
  The Voting Rights Act has been the most powerful tool to defend 
minorities' voting rights. The law established new ground to curb voter 
discrimination by requiring Federal ``preclearance''--that is, Federal 
review--of voting law changes in areas with histories of 
discrimination. And therein lies its power. There is no remedy for 
citizens after an unfair election has occurred. Section 5 of the Voting 
Rights Act was the only Federal remedy that could prevent unfair 
elections before they took place.
  The lesson of history is clear--section 5 of the Voting Rights Act 
has made America live up to its promises of liberty and justice by 
ensuring that every citizen has an equal opportunity to participate in 
our democracy. That is why preserving the Voting Rights Act is so 
important. That is why Presidents Reagan, Ford, and Nixon had signed 
prior reauthorizations of the act. That is why in successive 
Congresses--both Republicans and Democrats--repeatedly reauthorized 
section 5.
  In 2006, Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act by an 
overwhelming bipartisan margin. The law was reauthorized 98 to 0 in the 
Senate and 390 to 33 in the House and President George W. Bush signed 
the bill into law. It was a testament to the fact that men and women 
from across the aisle could come together to protect what is most 
important to our democracy, the right to vote. A right the Supreme 
Court has called fundamental because it is preservative of all other 
rights.
  Congress developed an expansive record during its 2006 
reauthorization that justified the need for section 5 as a necessary 
and effective tool to protect minority voters. The House and Senate 
Judiciary Committees found ample evidence that, even after the passage 
of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, States and localities continued to 
engage in overt and subtle tactics that discriminated against minority 
voters.
  Two years ago, a narrowly split and deeply divided Supreme Court 
disregarded extensive findings of Congress and gutted the Voting Rights 
Act. In a case known as Shelby County v. Holder, five Justices on the 
Supreme Court put the Voting Rights Act on life support by striking 
down the formula by which Congress determines which States and 
localities are subject to preclearance.
  That 2013 decision has nullified the ability of the Federal 
Government to use the preclearance requirement. Section 5 has protected 
constitutional guarantees against discrimination in voting even when 
civil rights laws tried for over 100 years to achieve the success of 
the Voting Rights Act. The Court reached its decision despite Congress 
finding an overwhelming record of contemporary voting discrimination. 
Even the Chief Justice wrote, ``voting discrimination still exists: no 
one doubts that.''
  Yet, the Shelby County decision rested on a flawed logic that the 
Voting Rights Act was a victim of its own success. Justice Ginsburg's 
dissent noted a ``catch-22'' in the majority's logic. She said:

       If the statute was working, there would be less evidence of 
     discrimination, so opponents might argue that Congress should 
     not be allowed to renew the statute. In contrast, if the 
     statute was not working, there would be plenty of evidence of 
     discrimination, but scant reason to renew a failed regulatory 
     regime.

  I agree with Justice Ginsburg that the Court's decision to strike 
down section 5 ``when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop 
discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a 
rainstorm because you're not getting wet.''
  Even in the aftermath of Shelby County, States continued to enact 
laws that make it harder for American citizens to cast their ballot. 
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Nation's foremost civil 
rights coalition, released a report last year entitled ``The Persistent 
Challenges of Voting Discrimination.'' That report documented 148 
voting rights violations in America since 2000. Because each voting 
rights violation often impacts thousands of voters, the report 
underscored that the impact of racial discrimination in voting is much 
more profound than the nearly 150 documented violations suggest.
  New State laws erect barriers to voting, which restrict voter 
registration drives, eliminate same-day voter registration, reduce the 
early voting period, and require photo identification and proof of 
citizenship to vote. So far, 32 States have passed laws requiring 
voters to show some kind of identification at the polls, which often 
have a disparate impact on minority and low-income voters.
  The Voting Rights Advancement Act would help prevent voting practices 
that are likely to be discriminatory before they cause harm. It would 
create a new nationwide coverage formula requiring States and 
localities to obtain preclearance for voting changes that have 
historically been found to be discriminatory. It would enhance the 
authority of courts to order a preclearance remedy, require greater 
transparency regarding voting changes, and clarify the Attorney 
General's authority to send Federal observers to monitor elections 
across the country.
  In his ``I Have a Dream'' speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, 
``When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of 
the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, they were signing a 
promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.'' The Voting 
Rights Act has been one of our most important tools to fulfill that 
promise and protect voters against discrimination. Congress now has a 
historic opportunity to ensure that the critical provisions in that law 
are restored and strengthened.
  Now is the time to recommit ourselves to the cause of justice. Now is 
the time to safeguard our democratic values. Now is the time to protect 
the progress so many Americans worked so hard to establish. I urge all 
Senators to support this bill that would combat voter discrimination 
and breathe life back into the Voting Rights Act.

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