[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 10, 2020)]
[House]
[Page H1579]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1615
              RESTORING THE VOICES OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

  (Mr. SARBANES asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SARBANES. Madam Speaker, 1 year ago, almost to the day, this 
House of Representatives passed H.R. 1, the For the People Act, a 
transformative anticorruption and clean elections bill that would give 
people their voice back in their own democracy.
  It would fix gerrymandering; it would fix voting; it would fix 
ethics; it would protect the ballot box; it would push back against 
foreign interference and foreign disinformation coming into our 
campaigns; and it would lift up the voices of average Americans in 
competing with big money and lobbyists here in Washington.
  It would change the status quo so every American would feel that 
their voice counts here, that their opinion matters, and that that is 
how we make policy.
  Unfortunately, Mitch McConnell, the majority leader in the United 
States Senate, has refused to bring H.R. 1 to the floor of the United 
States Senate. One whole year of folding his arms at the gates of our 
democracy and saying to the American people: You shall not pass.
  Madam Speaker, we are not going to be deterred; we are not going be 
to be diverted; and we are not going to be defeated. We are going to 
keep pressing on to pass H.R. 1 for the people and restore the voices 
of the American people.

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