[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 105 (Wednesday, June 29, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4714-S4715]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF SHELBY COUNTY V. HOLDER
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last Saturday was the third anniversary of
the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision. In this case, a
divided Court voted 5-4 to gut the Voting Rights Act. The Court struck
down the provision of the Voting Rights Act that required certain
jurisdictions with a documented history of discrimination to
``preclear'' any changes to their voting laws with the Department of
Justice.
In the 3 years since Shelby County, Democrats and a small handful of
Republicans have sought to restore the Voting Rights Act.
Unfortunately, the majority of Republicans in Congress have obstructed
efforts to reinstate robust Federal voting protections. As a result,
2016 will mark the first Presidential election without the full
protections of the Voting Rights Act since this historic legislation
was signed into law in 1965.
The restrictions on voting that many Americans face today can be
traced back to the 2010 midterm election. After that election, in which
Republicans won control of several State legislative chambers and
governorships, State lawmakers across the country introduced burdensome
voting laws. These laws ranged from strict voter identification
requirements to cuts in early voting. At the time, the Voting Rights
Act served as a backstop, preventing States covered by the preclearance
requirement from implementing changes that had a discriminatory purpose
or effect.
That is why the Shelby County decision in 2013 had an immediate
impact. Released from preclearance requirements, States with
discriminatory histories were free to move forward with new
restrictions on voting. For example, within hours of the Shelby County
decision, Texas State officials announced that they would immediately
implement a photo ID requirement for in-person voting that Texas first
tried to put in place in 2011. This burdensome voter ID law had
previously been blocked by both the Department of Justice and a Federal
appeals court, due to the law's harmful impact on poor and minority
voters. As a result of this law going into effect, we heard disturbing
stories of a 93-year-old veteran and nearly 70-year-old doctor who were
turned away from the polls in Texas in 2014 because their IDs did not
meet the onerous new requirements.
During my time as chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution,
Civil Rights, and Human Rights, I held a series of hearings that
examined restrictive State voting laws. During these hearings, we heard
over and over again that these laws have a disproportionate impact on
lower-income, minority, youth, elderly, and other vulnerable voting
populations.
I asked the State officials at each of my hearings whether there were
any widespread instances of voter fraud to justify these laws, and they
were unable to point to any examples. There have been only a handful of
prosecutions over the last decade. This clearly is not a problem in
need of a solution. This is clearly an effort to restrict the
opportunity to vote for certain Americans.
This year, voters in 17 States will face restrictions that they have
not previously experienced in a Presidential election. Eight of these
States were previously covered by the preclearance provision in the
Voting Rights Act.
Recent primary elections in many of these States gave voters a taste
of potential problems to come in the general election. In Maricopa
County, AZ, some voters were forced to endure
[[Page S4715]]
waits of more than 5 hours in order to cast their ballots in the March
primary election. The cause of the delay was a decision by a local
election official to massively cut the number of polling locations. In
the 2008 primary, 400 polling places were available. In 2016, that
number was slashed to a mere 60 locations. Prior to Shelby County, such
a change would have been evaluated and likely challenged by the Justice
Department in a preclearance review.
In Wisconsin, a newly implemented voter photo identification law led
to challenges and confusion in the April primary. Press reports
recently documented the story of one of the affected voters. Eddie Lee
Holloway, Jr., moved from my home State of Illinois to Wisconsin in
2008 and was able to vote without any problems before the voter ID law
went into effect. After the law was passed, Mr. Holloway went to a DMV
in Milwaukee with an expired Illinois photo ID, his birth certificate,
and his Social Security card to obtain a Wisconsin photo ID for voting.
However, his application was rejected due to a clerical error on his
birth certificate, which read ``Eddie Junior Holloway.''
Mr. Holloway spent hundreds of dollars traveling to Illinois to try
to fix this problem. In addition to the Milwaukee DMV, he visited the
Vital Records System in Milwaukee, the Illinois Vital Records Division
in Springfield, an Illinois DMV, and his high school in Decatur, IL--
all in an attempt to obtain sufficient records for a Wisconsin voter
ID. Ultimately, he was unsuccessful. Despite all of these efforts, Mr.
Holloway was unable to vote in the April primary.
What is particularly infuriating about Mr. Holloway's case is that
Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature were hoping for exactly
this type of outcome. The chief of staff to a leading Republican State
senator in Wisconsin resigned last year after witnessing Republican
legislators who were, ``literally giddy'' over the impact the new voter
ID law would have on minority and student voters. In an interview with
the New York Times, the former staffer said, ``I remember when
Republicans were the ones who helped Johnson pass the civil rights bill
in the '60s.'' Indeed, it was 51 years ago this year President Lyndon
B. Johnson signed the bipartisan Voting Rights Act into law--
guaranteeing that the right to vote would not be restricted through
clever schemes, like poll taxes and literacy tests, devised to keep
African Americans from voting.
I wish that, 51 years after we enacted the Voting Rights Act, our
society had reached a point where its protections were no longer
necessary, but we clearly have not, and the Voting Rights Act is still
very much needed today.
That is why Senator Leahy, Senator Coons, and I introduced the Voting
Rights Advancement Act last year. This legislation would restore the
Voting Rights Act. It would ensure that burdensome voting laws will be
reviewed and, if found to be discriminatory, blocked before they go
into effect.
I recently joined Senator Leahy and our Democratic colleagues on the
Senate Judiciary Committee in sending a letter to the chairman of the
full committee and the chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee,
urging them to hold a hearing on voting rights and the Voting Rights
Advancement Act. Between 2007 and 2013, Senate Democrats held nine
hearings to examine the issue of voting rights. In contrast,
Republicans have not held a single hearing on voting rights since
taking the majority in 2015.
This is disappointing. Voting rights has traditionally been a
bipartisan issue. In 2006, Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act
with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. Three hundred and ninety Members
of the House and 98 Senators came together on a bipartisan basis to
reauthorize the bill. Twenty-one hearings with more than 90 witnesses
and a 15,000-page record illustrated to us that the Voting Rights Act
was still very much needed. Three years ago, the Supreme Court ignored
our efforts in Shelby County, but we can, and we must, come together
once again to address voting rights.
Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin, has
introduced legislation in the House to restore the Voting Rights Act.
Earlier this year, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times. He noted,
``Ensuring that every eligible voter can cast a ballot without fear,
deterrence and prejudice is a basic American right. I would rather lose
my job than suppress votes to keep it.''
I urge my colleagues to listen to Congressman Sensenbrenner and join
us in our fight to restore the Voting Rights Act. It is time to bring
the bipartisan Voting Rights Advancement Act to the floor and ensure
that the Federal Government is once again able to fully protect the
fundamental right to vote.
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