[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 106 (Thursday, June 17, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4615-S4616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FOR THE PEOPLE ACT OF 2021
Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, next week looks like a busy week. That
is fine. We have a lot of things we need to be able to cover and to be
able to walk through as the Senate.
Next week will be particularly divisive, though, in some of the
issues that are coming up. Let me give you two examples that I hear are
on the docket for next week. One of them deals with how we vote in
America.
In Oklahoma, we know how we vote. Each State determines its own
structure of how they vote. In Oklahoma, you can do absentee mail-in
voting, with no excuses. If for any reason you want to be able to mail
in a ballot, you can do that. You can do in-person voting early. In
fact, this year, our State legislature met, and they added another day
of in-person voting. So there are lots of days of in-person voting in
Oklahoma. You could actually go to the poll the day of the election and
be able to vote then. It is up to you.
We have very straightforward voter ID laws. We have a system set up
that if you do early voting or absentee voting, all the disputes on
those are handled before election day itself, so that on election day,
when the polls close at 7 p.m., we then finish all the voting--or the
counting, I should say, on early absentee, on early in-person, and then
we are counting the day of. Usually by about 10:30 at night on election
day, we are done voting and everyone is watching all the final results
in from the entire State.
It is a pretty straightforward, clean process that we have seen that
is exceptionally reliable. In fact, it is so tough, in 2016, when the
Russians were probing different systems to try to get into it, our
State was one of the States the Russians tried to get into, couldn't
get into our system, and they moved on to other States to try to get
into those.
We have a secure system. We have a reliable system. But that is
apparently not enough because S. 1 that is coming to the floor next
week would say: Oklahoma, we are going to completely change your
system. People in Washington, DC, don't like how you vote, don't like
your clean, reliable efficiency. Regardless of complaints, we think we
want to change it here in Washington, DC.
Interestingly enough, we have a system that can also verify if
someone voted twice. In fact, in this past election, 57 people in
Oklahoma voted twice. We could verify that after the fact based on all
the records, and we can go back and be able to actually prosecute those
individuals who chose to vote twice because that is not legal.
Here is what happens when S. 1 comes to the floor. The debate here on
S. 1 will begin with no voter ID. Take away your voter ID in Oklahoma.
Change the way you do early voting. In fact, change the way the ballots
are actually collected entirely. No longer in Oklahoma will we know the
winner of our election at 10:30 on election night. S. 1 changes that
and said that ballots have to be able to be allowed to trickle in for
10 more days after the election is over. So we won't know at 10:30 at
night on election night; we will know 2 weeks later who actually won
the elections.
As far as a reliable system that we can all verify and check--oh, no,
it changes that dramatically. It now opens up what is called ballot
harvesting. Ballot harvesting would allow political operatives to go
door-to-door to be able to engage with people who had mail-in ballots
and to say to them ``Have you mailed your ballot in?'' If they say
``No,'' they can say ``Well, let's just fill it out right here on the
porch, and then you can hand it to me, and I will take it in.''
So on election day, what happens is, political operatives show up
with boxes full of ballots and turn in boxes full of ballots with the
words ``Trust me; these are all good.''
I would tell you, in Oklahoma, we like it better when the postman
carries that ballot or when you actually turn it in to that county or
precinct official so we know where it has been, that there has been an
accurate chain of custody, not someone showing up with a box full of
ballots saying ``Trust me; I collected all of these'' because when that
happens and someone is just collecting ballots, you have no idea if the
person voting voted for one person and left the rest of them blank and
the person carrying them just filled out the rest of the ballot for
them. You have no chain of custody at all on it. That is why I say S. 1
makes voting easy, cheating easy, and verifying elections impossible.
This is not the direction we should go. If we want to build trust in
our election system in America, let's let each State build trust in
their election system for each State, like we do in Oklahoma, where we
work together to make sure we can make it as easy as possible for every
person to be able to vote and to encourage every person to vote, but
when it is over, to verify that election and to be able to know that we
can check it all off and to go, regardless of the outcome, we can trust
the outcome because we know we can verify it.
Let's make it easy to vote, hard to cheat, and easy to verify--not
having Washington, DC, folks here say DC is righteous and States are
wrong. I think there are lots of great people all over the country who
want to do their elections right and who aren't Republicans or
Democrats; they are just people protecting democracies in the States.
Let's keep that system.
[[Page S4616]]
That is the first of two divisive bills that are coming up next week,
which will absolutely fail in this body and should fail in this
body. There is a second bill that I understand is coming up next week,
as well, and it is called the Equality Act.
Now, I will tell you that it is a great name, and I don't know of
anyone on my side of the aisle or on the other side of the aisle who
opposes equality. I will state frankly that no person should be
discriminated against in America--no person. It is a basic
constitutional principle: We are all equal under the law--all of us. We
have different ideas about music and food. We have different ideas
about sexuality. We have different ideas about occupations. We have
different skin colors. We have different faiths. We are a tapestry, and
that is one of the things that makes us strong in such a perfect way as
to build a more perfect Union. I believe that every person should be
protected from discrimination in America, but that does mean every
person.
Today, the Supreme Court ruled 9 to 0--9 to 0 in the Supreme Court--
that Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia was being discriminated
against by the city of Philadelphia because the city of Philadelphia
said to Catholic Social Services: You cannot practice your Catholic
faith in foster services.
Now, what is the story?
There have been Catholic services in Philadelphia since the 1700s.
For the last 50 years, Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia, this
particular organization, has served the neediest children in that area
by providing foster services and placement for them. They are a
religious organization, a faith-based organization--a Catholic
organization--and they believe that God created man and woman and that
this is God's design for marriage. So, in their placement of foster
children, they place children in homes where there is a man and a woman
who are present in marriage because of their profound belief.
There are 20 other foster services in Philadelphia that place foster
children in any family situation: husband and wife or two men or two
women. There are 20 of those services in Philadelphia, but the city of
Philadelphia went to Catholic Social Services and said: You have to be
like the other 20. You cannot practice your faith.
Even though, literally, Catholic Social Services had never had a gay
family reach out to them for an adoption placement--they had gone to
other places--the city of Philadelphia said: No, you have to change
your practice.
Unfortunately, Catholic Social Services had to argue for their
religious freedom all the way to the Supreme Court, and, today, they
ruled 9 to 0 that a faith-based institution cannot be discriminated
against because of their faith. They should be able to live out the
tenets of their faith and be able to practice them. To me, that is a
great decision to make--to say: Why can't we coexist? Why can't we
honor everyone in their differences of opinion?
Even the Supreme Court stated today, in its opinion, that there was
no work from Catholic Social Services to stop gay marriages in
Philadelphia or to stop couples from fostering children who are gay
couples there. They just chose not to do it based on their faith. So
they were not working against individuals. They were practicing their
faith.
Now comes the Equality Act vote next week. The Equality Act would,
for the first time ever in this Congress, take away the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act in statute--it would remove it--and say there
could be no protection for religious institutions. This is a direct
shot against the Supreme Court, in its 9 to 0 decision today, which
said: No, religious institutions have to be protected in their
decisions.
Why can't both exist? Why do we have to get into a situation, as the
Equality Act does, that says, if you don't agree with one particular
expression, then you have to be canceled? that you have to be silenced?
Why has it come to this in America?
The way the Equality Act is written is, with regard to any faith-
based institution, if they did any public, outward-facing work at all--
if they fed the homeless, which many do; if they provided clothing; if
they took care of individuals with food who needed it--that was
considered to be of public accommodation, their labor laws, even if
they were religious institutions, had to be exactly like large
corporate labor rules as well. It literally imposes on religious
institutions that you can be a private entity and be inward facing, but
if you are going to do your mission to actually serve the needy, then
you have to actually shift to be like corporate America. That is not
providing opportunities for people of faith to live their faiths.
I have to tell you that I honor people of faith--people of different
faiths, people of faiths that I disagree with. The nature of religious
liberty in our country is to be able to honor people of different
faiths. That is also what the Supreme Court reaffirmed today directly
in contradiction to the Equality Act. Clearly, if this were to pass--
and I do not believe it will--the Supreme Court would hear it
immediately, would align with this case from today, and would say: We
have already ruled on these issues 9 to 0--that is, against not
allowing people to be able to live their faiths.
Unfortunately, there are some in this body who not only vehemently
disagree with the Supreme Court and with the opportunity for people to
be able to live their faiths, but they are willing to do it in the most
pejorative of terms.
When I spoke against the Equality Act in the Judiciary Committee,
just weeks ago, and shared the issues that I had that were pragmatic
labor issues and set those in front of it and also did a challenge on a
religious liberty issue and said, ``Here are the obvious issues of
religious liberty where I think it is unconstitutional,'' the response
I got from a member of the Judiciary Committee was, This reminds me of
the Ku Klux Klan, who burned crosses and used religious symbols to hide
behind their bigotry.
The Supreme Court disagreed with that today and said: We are the
United States of America. We honor people of faith to be able to live
their faiths. We honor people who don't have faith or have differences
in their faiths and choose to be able to live that out. This body
should not try to cancel out every group of faith in the country that
disagrees with people in this body who say: You cannot practice your
faith if we tell you no. That is not who we are.
The Equality Act is not about equality. It is about imposing and
prohibiting disagreements. We are Americans. We can respect each other
and disagree. We can live next-door to each other and disagree. Let's
prove it in this body by not passing the poorly named Equality Act but
by actually demonstrating what this act says it wants to demonstrate.
Let's treat each other with respect in our differences and honor us in
that.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
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