[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 83 (Thursday, May 13, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2501-S2503]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Afghanistan

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to address 
what I believe is an urgent and fundamental issue of our policy in 
Afghanistan, and that is, what happens to the women and girls when the 
United States and NATO forces leave after 20 years?
  Over the years, as I have talked to my constituents and people around 
the country, one of the things they have all been united on about our 
effort in Afghanistan has been the difference that our intervention has 
made for women and girls.
  Before we went into Afghanistan in 2002, girls were not allowed to go 
to school, women were not allowed to work, and there was no freedom of 
movement for women and girls unless they had a male escort. They 
couldn't listen to music. They were required to wear burqas anytime 
they went out of their homes.
  What we have seen has been safety and security for Afghan women and 
girls as the result of our intervention, but now all of these gains are 
at risk as we withdraw our forces. The lack of emphasis on the safety 
and security of Afghan women and girls in the peace process is what has 
brought us to this point.
  We are leaving by September, and there is no plan to ensure that the 
rights that were achieved for women and girls are actually protected, 
even though we have legislation that says that in conflict areas like 
Afghanistan, we have a responsibility to ensure that women are at the 
negotiating table.
  Well, as we rethink the role of the United States in Afghanistan, I 
want to put a face on what we are talking about, what it means if we 
don't prioritize women's rights there.
  In March of this year, the State Department posthumously honored 
seven women who were given the International Women of Courage Award. 
These are all women who were killed in Afghanistan in 2020. They are 
pictured here. They were murdered--assassinated, really--for choosing 
to live their lives outside of the narrow confines of what the Taliban 
and other extremist groups deem acceptable for women, and they reflect 
the thousands of other women in Afghanistan who have been the targets 
of violence.
  We have seen over the last months of 2020 and beginning of 2021 that 
women were deliberately targeted for assassination, particularly women 
in high-profile positions. These women have been murdered for going to 
school, for reporting the news, for delivering healthcare or running 
for public office. We talk about them as courageous, and certainly they 
are, but they should not have to be courageous to do the kinds of 
things that they were murdered for.
  It should not require courage to be a journalist like Malalai 
Maiwand, who

[[Page S2502]]

is right here in the lower left-hand corner. It should not require 
courage to stand up for basic human rights like Fatima Khalil, who is 
up here in the middle, or Freshta Kohistani, who is right here. Fatima 
was a human rights official. Freshta was an activist for women rights. 
Yet both of these women were killed by the Taliban for doing what they 
believed in, for trying to improve the lives of other women. Sadly, 
that kind of courage is what is required of all women in Afghanistan 
today.
  I worry that this reality is only going to escalate after our 
departure. Indeed, we saw this over this past weekend when 85 people, 
most of them schoolgirls, were killed in a car bomb outside of a girls 
school in Kabul.
  I saw them interviewing one young woman who, I think, was about 14, 
about why she thought they had been targeted. She said: ``I guess it's 
because we want an education.'' This is the future we risk if we don't 
have a plan for how we are going to continue to support the women and 
girls of Afghanistan.
  I also want to talk about the other four women who are pictured here.
  Fatima Rajabi, who is in the middle, was a 23-year-old prison guard. 
She was on her way home from work and was on a civilian bus when the 
bus was stopped by the Taliban. She was kidnapped, tortured, and 
murdered, and 2 weeks later, her body was sent to her family.
  Then there is Freshta, who is the daughter of Amir Mohamed. She was a 
35-year-old prison guard who was killed on her way to a taxi to get to 
work--again, killed by a gunman.
  At the bottom is General Sharmila Frogh. General Frogh was the head 
of the gender unit in the National Directorate of Security and was one 
of the longest serving female NDS officers in Afghanistan. She was 
assassinated when an IED explosion targeted her vehicle in Kabul.
  Finally, I think the most horrific and barbarous of all of these 
murders was of Maryam Noorzad. Maryam was a midwife, and she was killed 
when the hospital in Kabul was attacked by the Taliban. She was there, 
helping a woman deliver a baby, and she refused to leave when they were 
attacked. She didn't want to leave the woman she was helping as a 
midwife, so the Taliban not only killed her when she refused to leave 
the woman, but they killed the mother, and they killed the baby. These 
are the Taliban whom we are being asked to join at the negotiating 
table.
  I can tell you that I don't intend to support any political efforts 
that will allow the Taliban to continue to commit these horrific acts 
of violence. The agreement we made with the Taliban has already been 
breached by the Taliban. They have refused to cut ties with al-Qaida 
and other terrorist groups. They continue to escalate the violence.
  What we are going to see over the next several months and what we do 
is going to impact the lives of women for generations to come in that 
country, which is why we must do absolutely everything in our power to 
support the women and those in Afghanistan who want peace and who want 
to see the country move beyond the extreme religious rhetoric of the 
Taliban.
  These seven women didn't deserve to die, and those schoolgirls in 
Kabul didn't deserve to die. We owe it to them and to the generations 
who will come after them to do everything we can to prevent any more 
Afghan women from meeting the same fate.
  This is not a partisan issue, and it is not a woman's issue. It is a 
human rights issue, and it is a security issue for the future of 
Afghanistan because, if women are empowered in that country, the 
potential for stability is so much greater. So I urge the Senate to do 
everything in our power to ensure that women are represented at the 
table in the future of negotiations and that their rights are preserved 
in Afghanistan.
  We must remember these seven women and the thousands of women like 
them and the schoolgirls in Kabul--the girls who should have the 
opportunity to grow up in a world with the freedoms that their mothers 
fought to secure. The women and girls of Afghanistan are watching what 
we do, and we can't afford to let them down.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to 
complete my remarks before the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered


                       For the People Act of 2021

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, on Tuesday, the Senate Rules Committee 
conducted its markup of S. 1, which is the Senate's version of the 
Democrats' election bill that is designed to increase the Democrats' 
chances of maintaining their currently tenuous hold on power.
  We are told that passing this bill is urgent. We were told that in 
the last Congress, too, when the Democrats first proposed this 
legislation. They said the same thing--that there were serious election 
problems and that we needed to pass this legislation to address them.
  Then, of course, we had the 2020 elections, which the Democrats won 
and which featured record voter turnout. In fact, it was the largest 
voter turnout since 1900. So it became just a little difficult for the 
Democrats to argue that there were grave problems with our electoral 
system. Yet they still really, really want to pass this bill--a bill 
that contains what one respected legal scholar has called ``some of the 
most blatantly partisan, most obviously unconstitutional, and most 
unwise provisions ever passed by a chamber of Congress.'' So they have 
had to come up with a new rationale for trying to jam through this 
legislation.
  Now we are being warned about a new crisis: States, which under the 
Constitution, historically, have had primary responsibility when it 
comes to elections, are debating election administration measures that 
will return our Nation to the Jim Crow era, and so we have to pass S. 1 
to prevent the damage these States are going to do. The only thing, of 
course, is that this crisis is as manufactured as the last one.
  Take Georgia, the Democrats have made Georgia a poster child for the 
need to pass election legislation.
  ``Georgia's new voting law,'' the Senate Democratic whip asserted, 
``is a deliberate effort to suppress voters, particularly voters of 
color.''
  The President feverishly described the Georgia law as ``Jim Crow on 
steroids.''
  The only problem with that argument is ``the law does not put up 
roadblocks to Black Americans registering to vote.''
  Those aren't my words. Those are the words of The Washington Post 
Fact Checker, but the Democrats haven't allowed facts or reason to 
intrude when it comes to their characterizations of Georgia's election 
law.
  The Democratic whip has come down to the floor and claimed that the 
Georgia law makes it a crime to give water to voters in line. In fact, 
while the law does place restrictions on activists' and candidates' 
handing out water and other items--an obvious conflict--it explicitly 
permits neutral election officials to offer voters water.
  The President has repeatedly claimed that the law is designed to keep 
working Americans from voting, except it is not. The Washington Post, 
as I mentioned, gave the President four Pinocchios, a rating that the 
Washington Post reserves for ``whoppers'' for that claim by the 
President of the United States.
  In fact, as the Washington Post Fact Checker's piece makes clear, 
there is reason to think that the law might actually--wait for it--
expand access to early voting. A fairminded piece in the New York 
Times--hardly a newspaper that carries water for Republicans--concluded 
that the voting provisions of the Georgia law are ``unlikely to 
significantly affect turnout or Democratic chances.''
  Georgia's voting laws are actually, in some ways, more permissive 
than voting laws in some Democratic-led States. Georgia allows more 
early voting than both the President and the Democratic leaders' home 
States, Delaware and New York. Unlike Georgia, neither Delaware nor New 
York offers any no-excuse absentee voting. I look forward to seeing the 
President and the

[[Page S2503]]

Democratic leader talk about how their home States are promoting voter 
suppression.
  The fact of the matter is, Georgia's new election law is squarely in 
the mainstream when it comes to State election laws. The Georgia bill 
would likely have been barely a blip in the news cycle if the Democrats 
had not seen an opportunity to distort this bill to advance their 
electoral agenda. Yet I want to talk about the actual substance of the 
Democrats' bill and why every Member of Congress should be opposing it.
  We are supposed to believe that this is an election integrity bill. 
In fact, it is the complete opposite. This bill would undermine 
election integrity in this country. It would do everything from making 
our election system more susceptible to fraud to undermining voter 
faith in our electoral system by politicizing election law.
  Let me just highlight a handful of the bill's worst provisions. Note 
that multiple amendments to address these concerns were voted down by 
the Democrats at Tuesday's markup, which says a lot about the partisan 
nature of the Democrats' aims with this bill.
  First, this bill would make the Federal Election Commission into a 
partisan body. Let me just repeat that. This bill would make the 
Federal Election Commission--the primary enforcer of election law in 
this country--into a partisan body. Instead of an independent 
Commission, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, which is 
what it is today, the FEC would become just a partisan arm of whichever 
President is in power.
  Tell me how that is supposed to enhance voter confidence in our 
system. Every single FEC ruling would be suspect. No Democrat voter 
would trust a Republican FEC, and no Republican voter would trust a 
Democrat one.
  Speaking of trust, let's talk about election fraud.
  The bill takes aim at State voter ID laws, which are commonsense 
measures--strongly supported by the American people--to ensure that 
voters are who they say they are before they vote. The Pew Research 
Center reports that 76 percent of Americans, including 61 percent of 
Democrats, support voter ID requirements.
  Now, I have always been at a loss to understand the congressional 
Democrats' passionate opposition to requiring people to provide 
identification before voting. I haven't heard the Democrats spend a lot 
of time complaining about requiring people to have a photo ID to drive 
or to fly or to go on a tour at the White House, but, somehow, asking 
people to provide an ID to vote is beyond the pale.
  Great Britain is actually planning to implement a voter ID 
requirement to prevent--you guessed it--electoral fraud. In fact, many 
European countries, including France, the Netherlands, and Sweden, 
require a form of identification to vote. Canada requires a form of 
identification to vote. It is difficult to understand the Democrats' 
fierce opposition to this commonsense fraud prevention measure.
  While we are on the subject of electoral fraud, let's talk about 
ballot harvesting.
  In addition to effectively eliminating States' voter ID requirements, 
S. 1 would also require that States allow ballot harvesting, the 
controversial practice of allowing political operatives to collect and 
submit ballots. Needless to say, ballot harvesting opens up a lot of 
questions about voter fraud and election integrity, and that is to put 
it mildly. Yet the Democrats' bill would not just permit States to 
allow it; it would require them--require them--to allow it. I could go 
on and on and on.
  S. 1 would allow the unprecedented regulation of political speech and 
issue advocacy. It would impose disclosure requirements for 
organizations, which would open up donors to retaliation and 
intimidation. It would spend taxpayer dollars--possibly tens of 
millions of taxpayer dollars per candidate--on the public financing of 
political campaigns.
  That is right. With a soaring national debt and priorities like 
infrastructure to fund, the Federal Government would end up steering 
hundreds of millions of dollars to political campaigns. Perhaps the 
best illustration of that is Senator Cruz, here in the U.S. Senate, who 
pointed out that in the first quarter of this year under this law, the 
Federal Government would have had to cut him a check for $30 million 
for his campaign.
  This legislation is not about voter integrity. It is not about 
preventing voter suppression. It is about permanently changing the 
electoral playing field to give Democrats a permanent electoral 
advantage.
  It is the same reason Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court or 
admit DC as a State. Democrats want to use whatever political power 
they have to secure a permanent advantage for Democrat candidates and 
Democrat policies.
  If Democrats were serious about protecting the integrity of our 
election system, they would be working with Republicans to develop 
bipartisan legislation, not pushing a bill that is unlikely to get a 
single Republican vote.
  Passing a huge Federal election reform measure on a partisan basis 
would completely undermine one of the main purposes of election reform 
legislation, which is enhancing confidence in the integrity of our 
system.
  I can assure Democrats that S. 1 would do nothing to enhance 
Republican voters' confidence in the integrity of elections. I suspect 
there are a number of Democrat voters and Independent voters who will 
also see this bill for what it is--a partisan takeover of our electoral 
system.
  We are fortunate that our electoral system by and large seems to be 
operating well. As I mentioned, see the record turnout of voters in the 
2020 election. It was the highest turnout since 1900.
  But there are certainly measures we can take up to further enhance 
election integrity--not S. 1, which would do nothing to further 
election integrity, but there are other measures we could take up. But 
in order to have any degree of legitimacy, any election reform measures 
we consider should be taken up on a bipartisan basis, and if Democrats 
really wanted to enhance voter confidence and protect the integrity of 
our system, that is what they would be doing--taking up bipartisan 
legislation on a bipartisan basis.
  It is unfortunate that their aims are more partisan than public-
spirited. S. 1 is a solution in search of a problem that would result 
in the unprecedented politicization of our electoral system. For the 
good of the country, every Member of Congress should oppose it.
  I yield the floor.