[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 2, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S966]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             VOTING RIGHTS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on voting rights, in our American system, 
we talk a lot about ``perfecting our Union,'' a reference to the 
preamble of the Constitution, a document which effectively gave only 
White male landowners the right to vote in our fledgling democracy. 
Suffice it to say, there is a lot of perfecting to do.
  As I think about my Democratic caucus--incidentally, it is probably 
so that less than half of them could actually vote in the elections of 
1789 because I believe in many States you had to be White, male, 
Protestant, a property owner--not so many of those around here.
  Over the course of 230 years, we passed scores of laws and amended 
the Constitution to reflect the flaws in our democracy and expand the 
franchise to all our citizens, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 
the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 14th, 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, 26th 
amendments--just to name a few.
  Despite all this progress, there is now, in the 21st century, a 
concerted effort to roll back voting rights in State legislatures 
across the country, alarmingly making it harder--harder--for Americans 
to vote and particularly aimed at Americans of color--African 
Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. And it is becoming a feature 
of one of America's major political parties.
  Yesterday, I detailed a number of laws pushed by Republicans in State 
legislatures to limit the amount of time that Americans have to vote, 
to frustrate election administration in urban areas and around college 
campuses, to impose overly burdensome ID requirements, absurd witness 
and signature requirements for absentee ballots. Maybe the most 
pernicious of all, Republicans in Georgia have coalesced around a plan 
to end all early voting on Sundays, a day when Black churches organize 
voter drives, with no good reason--again, none.
  The threat to voting rights in America is now very real. It must be 
opposed in every State house and Governor's mansion in this country.
  And the threat extends all the way to the Supreme Court of the United 
States. Eight years ago, a conservative 5-to-4 majority on the Court 
gutted the Voting Rights Act by essentially rendering meaningless 
section 5 of the statute, a provision which prevented the 
implementation of undue voting restrictions in a State with a history 
of discrimination.
  Chief Justice Roberts suggested that the era of widespread 
discrimination, which led to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, 
was over, and there was no longer a need for the critical portions of 
the statute. Well, within 24 hours after the ruling had been handed 
down, Texas announced it would implement a strict voter ID law, and 
soon thereafter, Mississippi and Alabama followed with laws that had 
previously been barred by the Justice Department.
  Republican leaders in the State of North Carolina passed a suite of 
voter suppression laws that a Federal judge found targeted African-
American voters ``with . . . surgical precision.'' Think about that. 
This was not a ruling from the Reconstruction Era or Jim Crow. It was 
only a few years ago.
  At a time when an African-American man elected by the most diverse 
coalition in the history of American politics occupied the White House, 
Republicans in North Carolina passed voting laws so pernicious that 
even the Roberts Court--among the most conservative we have seen on 
this issue of voting rights--could not ignore the overwhelming stench 
of discrimination. That is what it was--a stench rooted in America's 
sordid history of voter suppression and discrimination against Black 
voters.
  Well, today the Supreme Court will hear another case concerning the 
Voting Rights Act, this time about section 2, a section which Chief 
Justice Roberts referred to in the Shelby County ruling as a necessary 
failsafe to police discriminatory voting procedures nationwide
  As one news outlet reported this morning, ``there is every 
possibility that the high court could make it more difficult, or 
practically impossible, to challenge voting restrictions in the 
future,'' warning that another ruling against the law could render the 
Voting Rights Act ``a dead letter.''
  That is what is at stake in America right now. As State legislatures 
move to restrict voting rights from one end of the country to the 
other, the law we rely on to prevent outright discrimination at the 
ballot box is at risk of being ``a dead letter.'' This is one of the 
most appalling things I have seen in this country after 4 years of an 
appalling administration. This is just incredible. It burns my blood 
and should burn the blood of every fair-minded American--Republican, 
Democrat, Independent, liberal, conservative.
  After centuries of expanding the right to vote, of struggling to get 
that right to vote, these pernicious, self-serving proposed laws cut 
back on the right to vote. Will the Supreme Court let that happen? It 
is so against what America is all about.
  We cannot stand by and do nothing as these rights are diluted or 
stripped away. Congress must pursue a restoration of the Voting Rights 
Act, and by all accounts should be working in a bipartisan way to make 
it easier, safer, and more convenient for all Americans to vote. The 
judgment of history has never been kind to those who work against the 
full participation of their fellow citizens in our democratic 
experiment.
  I yield the floor.

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