[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 107 (Monday, June 21, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4637-S4640]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BUSINESS BEFORE THE SENATE

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, on today's, tomorrow's, and this week's 
business, the Senate will soon vote on two more nominees to join 
President Biden's administration: Christopher Fonzone to serve as 
general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence 
and Kiran Ahuja to be Director of the Office of Personnel Management. 
Those votes will happen tonight and tomorrow.
  The discussions on the bipartisan infrastructure bill and a budget 
reconciliation bill are both moving forward and will continue 
throughout the week.
  But tomorrow--tomorrow--the Senate will also take a crucial vote on 
whether to start debate on major voting rights legislation.
  I want to say that again. Tomorrow, the Senate will take a vote on 
whether to start debate on legislation to protect Americans' voting 
rights. It is not a vote on any particular policy. It is not a vote on 
this bill or that bill. It is a vote on whether the Senate should 
simply debate the issue about voting rights--the crucial issue of 
voting rights in this country.
  Now, by all rights, we shouldn't have to debate voting rights on the 
floor of the U.S. Senate. These rights should be sacrosanct, but the 
events of the last few months compel us to have this debate now.
  Why is there such urgency? Because of what has been happening in 
Republican legislature after legislature in the last several months. 
Voting rights--the most fundamental right of a democracy, the right 
that men and women have died for in wartime and in peacetime, the right 
by which all other rights are secured--are under assault--under assault 
from one end of the country to the other.
  In the wake of the 2020 election, Donald Trump told a lie--a Big 
Lie--that the election was stolen from him by voter fraud. There was no 
evidence for this. His own administration concluded that the 2020 
election was one of the safest in history. His lawyers were laughed out 
of courts, many by Republican judges--some by judges he appointed, that 
Trump appointed. But he kept saying it anyway. He lied over and over 
and over again. Donald Trump lied over and over and over again, 
poisoning our democracy, lighting a fire beneath Republican State 
legislatures, which immediately launched the most sweeping voter 
suppression effort in years.
  Just a note, how despicable a man is Donald Trump. He lost an 
election legitimately. He can't face that--that it was his failure. And 
he creates a lie--a Big Lie--and wins so many people over to that lie 
with the help of news media and other news commentators who are lying, 
as well, and they know it.
  Again, Donald Trump, with his despicable lies, has lit a fire beneath 
Republican State legislatures, and they

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have launched the most sweeping voter suppression efforts in at least 
80 years.
  More than 250 bills in 43 States were introduced just between the 
months of January and February that would restrict the right to vote. 
Do you want to know how many were introduced during a similar period of 
time last year, the year before Donald Trump was telling the Big Lie? 
Thirty-five. Thirty-five in 2020 and more than 250 in 2021.
  Today, in June, there have been nearly 400 bills introduced. The only 
thing that changed between 2020 and 2021 was Donald Trump's Big Lie 
about massive fraud.
  And now in States like Georgia and Iowa and Florida and Montana, 
these proposals are becoming law under the vicious guise of election 
integrity. The words ``election integrity'' aren't a guise. There is 
nothing vicious about them. The way Republican legislatures are using 
those words is vicious and a guise, a falsehood, fake.
  I want my Republican colleagues--maybe, we can awaken their 
conscience, maybe, on something as sacred as voting rights. I want my 
Republican colleagues to listen to some of the policies that have been 
proposed by Republican State legislatures and tell me how they are 
about election integrity, how they are about suppressing fraud:
  Reducing polling hours in polling places. How is that about election 
integrity? How does that reduce voter fraud?
  Mandating that every precinct, no matter how large or small, have the 
same number of ballot drop boxes--a county of a million or a county of 
1,000, the same number. How does that reduce fraud? What does that have 
to do with election integrity?
  No after-hours voting, no 24-hour voting, no drive-through voting. 
What does that have to do with election fraud?
  It certainly has everything to do with reducing people's right to 
vote and the ability to vote, but nothing to do with election fraud.
  My Republican colleagues, how does making it a crime to give food or 
water to voters waiting in long lines at the polls deter voter fraud, 
which, really, we have found no evidence exists, to begin with--very 
little evidence?
  By the way, in so many States, if you are African American, if you 
are inner city, if you are poor, if you are Brown, you have to wait a 
lot longer than if you are White and in the suburbs. Don't give them 
water. Don't allow them to have a drink as they are waiting in the hot 
Sun in line to vote. Yeah. What does that have to do with voter fraud? 
It has to do with cruelty, it has to do with nastiness, and it has to 
do with suppressing the vote.
  Allowing a judge to overturn an election; allowing a partisan State 
election board to replace a duly elected county election board member 
if they are underperforming--what does that have to do with fraud? What 
does that have to do with fraud?
  Removing student IDs from the list of valid forms of identification--
that is election integrity? Bunk. We know what you are doing. You don't 
want students to vote. Yeah. Don't let students vote. Turn them off to 
the whole process, and make America even more alienated.
  Delaying the hours of Sunday voting until the evening, which, 
coincidentally or not so coincidentally, by these Republican 
legislatures makes it harder for Black churchgoers to participate in 
voter drives after Sunday services--how despicable. Does that sound 
like Jim Crow, my Republican colleagues? It sure does to a lot of us.
  I challenge my Republican colleagues. I challenge you, Republican 
Senators: Come to the floor. Defend these policies. Tell us how they 
secure the vote. Tell us how they prevent nearly nonexistent voter 
fraud. How does removing student IDs as a valid form of identification 
secure our elections? Do you have any evidence that 40-year-olds are 
showing up at the polls with fake student IDs? Come on, show us. How is 
criminalizing giving water or food to voters in a line a fraud 
prevention measure? You got any evidence of that? What arguments do 
Republicans have for restrictions on Sunday voting? That is what Texas 
Senators--Texas Republicans want to do. Do any of my colleagues 
actually have evidence that voter fraud is especially prevalent on the 
Lord's Day? Please. We know what you are up to. America knows what you 
are up to. And not to debate this? Are you afraid to debate it? Do you 
not have any good arguments?
  Let's dispense with this nonsense. There is no real principle behind 
these policies. They are not about election integrity, and they are not 
about voter fraud. These policies have one purpose and one purpose 
only: making it harder for younger, poorer, non-White, and typically 
Democratic voters to access the ballot and to give Republicans a 
partisan advantage at the polls by making it harder for Democratic-
leaning voters to vote.
  You lose an election, you are not supposed to stop people from 
voting, even if they didn't vote for you. That is not democracy, my 
Republican friends. You lose an election, you are supposed to try 
harder to win over the voters you lost.
  Republicans across the country are trying to stop the other side from 
voting. That tears and rips apart the very fabric of our democracy.
  Disenfranchising millions of Americans is bad enough, but there is 
actually another sinister component of these voter suppression laws. In 
States like Arizona, Kansas, Arkansas, and Georgia, Republican 
legislatures are trying to give more power to themselves and other 
partisan bodies to undermine, override, and neuter bipartisan election 
boards and county-elected officials.
  It has always been bipartisan. They didn't like the result. They lost 
fair and square. Get rid of the election board official when there is 
no evidence they did anything wrong. The cumulative effect will make it 
easier for followers of Trump's Big Lie, for partisan Republicans to 
rig the rules and try to overturn election results.
  I read this article in the New York Times this weekend. You could 
weep from reading it. They reported that at least 10 members of county 
election boards in Georgia have been removed or are about to be removed 
in the wake of the new law passed by the GOP legislature. These are the 
folks who are in charge of selecting ballot drop box locations. They 
pointed out an African-American woman who made sure that a poor area 
had a drop box every year to allow people to vote. They want to kick 
her off the board. No one knows why. We do know why. There is no real, 
legitimate reason why. According to the Times, who are they kicking 
off? At least five are people of color, most are Democrats, and they 
are all most likely to be replaced by Republicans.
  Please, my colleagues, read this article. Read this article on how 
Republican States are expanding their power over elections, by Nick 
Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein, June 19, 2021. Read it. Can you read 
this article and still believe what Republican legislatures are doing 
is on the level? Can you read this article and believe they are not 
trying to jaundice and bias voting from what has traditionally been a 
process that is free and open and fair in many places--in most places? 
Read it. Just read it. It makes you want to weep what they are doing.
  This nice lady, who just wanted to help her people vote in a fair and 
honest way, gets kicked off the board or is getting kicked off the 
board.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record this full article from the New York Times dated June 19, 2021

                [From the New York Times, June 19, 2021]

     How Republican States Are Expanding Their Power Over Elections

                (By Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein)

       In Georgia, Republicans are removing Democrats of color 
     from local boards. In Arkansas, they have stripped election 
     control from county authorities. And they are expanding their 
     election power in many other states.
       Lonnie Hollis has been a member of the Troup County 
     election board in West Georgia since 2013. A Democrat and one 
     of two Black women on the board, she has advocated Sunday 
     voting, helped voters on Election Days and pushed for a new 
     precinct location at a Black church in a nearby town.
       But this year, Ms. Hollis will be removed from the board, 
     the result of a local election law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, 
     a Republican. Previously, election board members were 
     selected by both political parties, county commissioners and 
     the three biggest municipalities in Troup County. Now, the 
     G.O.P.-controlled county commission has the sole authority to 
     restructure the board and appoint all the new members.
       ``I speak out and I know the laws,'' Ms. Hollis said in an 
     interview. ``The bottom line is they don't like people that 
     have some type

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     of intelligence and know what they're doing, because they 
     know they can't influence them.''
       Ms. Hollis is not alone. Across Georgia, members of at 
     least 10 county election boards have been removed, had their 
     position eliminated or are likely to be kicked off through 
     local ordinances or new laws passed by the state legislature. 
     At least five are people of color and most are Democrats--
     though some are Republicans--and they will most likely all be 
     replaced by Republicans.
       Ms. Hollis and local officials like her have been some of 
     the earliest casualties as Republican-led legislatures mount 
     an expansive takeover of election administration in a raft of 
     new voting bills this year.
       G.O.P. lawmakers have also stripped secretaries of state of 
     their power, asserted more control over state election 
     boards, made it easier to overturn election results, and 
     pursued several partisan audits and inspections of 2020 
     results.
       Republican state lawmakers have introduced at least 216 
     bills in 41 states to give legislatures more power over 
     elections officials, according to the States United Democracy 
     Center, a new bipartisan organization that aims to protect 
     democratic norms. Of those, 24 have been enacted into law 
     across 14 states.
       G.O.P. lawmakers in Georgia say the new measures are meant 
     to improve the performance of local boards, and reduce the 
     influence of the political parties. But the laws allow 
     Republicans to remove local officials they don't like, and 
     because several of them have been Black Democrats, voting 
     rights groups fear that these are further attempts to 
     disenfranchise voters of color.
       The maneuvers risk eroding some of the core checks that 
     stood as a bulwark against former President Donald J. Trump 
     as he sought to subvert the 2020 election results. Had these 
     bills been in place during the aftermath of the election, 
     Democrats say, they would have significantly added to the 
     turmoil Mr. Trump and his allies wrought by trying to 
     overturn the outcome. They worry that proponents of Mr. 
     Trump's conspiracy theories will soon have much greater 
     control over the levers of the American elections system.
       ``It's a thinly veiled attempt to wrest control from 
     officials who oversaw one of the most secure elections in our 
     history and put it in the hands of bad actors,'' said Jena 
     Griswold, the chairwoman of the Democratic Association of 
     Secretaries of State and the current Colorado secretary of 
     state. ``The risk is the destruction of democracy.''
       Officials like Ms. Hollis are responsible for decisions 
     like selecting drop box and precinct locations, sending out 
     voter notices, establishing early voting hours and certifying 
     elections. But the new laws are targeting high-level state 
     officials as well, in particular secretaries of state--both 
     Republican and Democratic--who stood up to Mr. Trump and his 
     allies last year.
       Republicans in Arizona have introduced a bill that would 
     largely strip Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state, 
     of her authority over election lawsuits, and then expire when 
     she leaves office. And they have introduced another bill that 
     would give the Legislature more power over setting the 
     guidelines for election administration, a major task 
     currently carried out by the secretary of state.
       Under Georgia's new voting law, Republicans significantly 
     weakened the secretary of state's office after Brad 
     Raffensperger, a Republican who is the current secretary, 
     rebuffed Mr. Trump's demands to ``find'' votes. They removed 
     the secretary of state as the chair of the state election 
     board and relieved the office of its voting authority on the 
     board.
       Kansas Republicans in May overrode a veto from Gov. Laura 
     Kelly, a Democrat, to enact laws stripping the governor of 
     the power to modify election laws and prohibiting the 
     secretary of state, a Republican who repeatedly vouched for 
     the security of voting by mail, from settling election-
     related lawsuits without the Legislature's consent.
       And more Republicans who cling to Mr. Trump's election lies 
     are running for secretary of state, putting a critical office 
     within reach of conspiracy theorists. In Georgia, 
     Representative Jody Hice, a Republican who voted against 
     certifying President Biden's victory, is running against Mr. 
     Raffensperger. Republican candidates with similar views are 
     running for secretary of state in Nevada, Arizona and 
     Michigan.
       ``In virtually every state, every election administrator is 
     going to feel like they're under the magnifying glass,'' said 
     Victoria Bassetti, a senior adviser to the States United 
     Democracy Center.
       More immediately, it is local election officials at the 
     county and municipal level who are being either removed or 
     stripped of their power.
       In Arkansas, Republicans were stung last year when Jim 
     Sorvillo, a three-term state representative from Little Rock, 
     lost re-election by 24 votes to Ashley Hudson, a Democrat and 
     local lawyer. Elections officials in Pulaski County, which 
     includes Little Rock, were later found to have accidentally 
     tabulated 327 absentee ballots during the vote-counting 
     process, 27 of which came from the district.
       Mr. Sorvillo filed multiple lawsuits aiming to stop Ms. 
     Hudson from being seated, and all were rejected. The 
     Republican caucus considered refusing to seat Ms. Hudson, 
     then ultimately voted to accept her.
       But last month, Arkansas Republicans wrote new legislation 
     that allows a state board of election commissioners--composed 
     of six Republicans and one Democrat--to investigate and 
     ``institute corrective action'' on a wide variety of issues 
     at every stage of the voting process, from registration to 
     the casting and counting of ballots to the certification of 
     elections. The law applies to all counties, but it is widely 
     believed to be aimed at Pulaski, one of the few in the state 
     that favor Democrats.
       The author of the legislation, State Representative Mark 
     Lowery, a Republican from a suburb of Little Rock, said it 
     was necessary to remove election power from the local 
     authorities, who in Pulaski County are Democrats, because 
     otherwise Republicans could not get a fair shake.
       ``Without this legislation, the only entity you could have 
     referred impropriety to is the prosecuting attorney, who is a 
     Democrat, and possibly not had anything done,'' Mr. Lowery 
     said in an interview. ``This gives another level of 
     investigative authority to a board that is commissioned by 
     the state to oversee elections.''
       Asked about last year's election, Mr. Lowery said, ``I do 
     believe Donald Trump was elected president.''
       A separate new Arkansas law allows a state board to ``take 
     over and conduct elections'' in a county if a committee of 
     the legislature determines that there are questions about the 
     ``appearance of an equal, free and impartial election.''
       In Georgia, the legislature passed a unique law for some 
     counties. For Troup County, State Representative Randy Nix, a 
     Republican, said he had introduced the bill that restructured 
     the county election board--and will remove Ms. Hollis--only 
     after it was requested by county commissioners. He said he 
     was not worried that the commission, a partisan body with 
     four Republicans and one Democrat, could exert influence over 
     elections.
       ``The commissioners are all elected officials and will face 
     the voters to answer for their actions,'' Mr. Nix said in an 
     email.
       Eric Mosley, the county manager for Troup County, which Mr. 
     Trump carried by 22 points, said that the decision to ask Mr. 
     Nix for the bill was meant to make the board more bipartisan. 
     It was unanimously supported by the commission.
       ``We felt that removing both the Republican and Democratic 
     representation and just truly choose members of the community 
     that invest hard to serve those community members was the 
     true intent of the board,'' Mr. Mosley said. ``Our goal is to 
     create both political and racial diversity on the board.''
       In Morgan County, east of Atlanta, Helen Butler has been 
     one of the state's most prominent Democratic voices on voting 
     rights and election administration. A member of the county 
     board of elections in a rural, Republican county, she also 
     runs the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, a group 
     dedicated to protecting the voting rights of Black Americans 
     and increasing their civic engagement.
       But Ms. Butler will be removed from the county board at the 
     end of the month, after Mr. Kemp signed a local bill that 
     ended the ability of political parties to appoint members.
       ``I think it's all a part of the ploy for the takeover of 
     local boards of elections that the state legislature has put 
     in place,'' Ms. Butler said. ``It is them saying that they 
     have the right to say whether an election official is doing 
     it right, when in fact they don't work in the day to day and 
     don't understand the process themselves.''
       It's not just Democrats who are being removed. In DeKalb 
     County, the state's fourth-largest, Republicans chose not to 
     renominate Baoky Vu to the election board after more than 12 
     years in the position. Mr. Vu, a Republican, had joined with 
     Democrats in a letter opposing an election-related bill that 
     eventually failed to pass.
       To replace Mr. Vu, Republicans nominated Paul Maner, a 
     well-known local conservative with a history of false 
     statements, including an insinuation that the son of a 
     Georgia congresswoman was killed in ``a drug deal gone bad.''
       Back in LaGrange, Ms. Hollis is trying to do as much as she 
     can in the time she has left on the board. The extra precinct 
     in nearby Hogansville, where the population is roughly 50 
     percent Black, is a top priority. While its population is 
     only about 3,000, the town is bifurcated by a rail line, and 
     Ms. Hollis said that sometimes it can take an exceedingly 
     long time for a line of freight cars to clear, which is 
     problematic on Election Days.
       ``We've been working on this for over a year,'' Ms. Hollis 
     said, saying Republicans had thrown up procedural hurdles to 
     block the process. But she was undeterred.
       ``I'm not going to sit there and wait for you to tell me 
     what it is that I should do for the voters there,'' she said. 
     ``I'm going to do the right thing.''
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, my Republican friends are fond of 
saying that they just want to make it easier to vote and harder to 
cheat in an election. But when you look at what they are actually 
doing, it is spectacularly obvious that Republicans are making it 
harder to vote and easier to steal an election. The Big Lie that 
started with Donald Trump is infecting them--infecting them. Lies don't 
matter, and they don't matter when it comes to the sacred process of 
elections--free, open, fair elections where everyone has an opportunity 
to vote.

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  Do my colleagues forget? Remember what Donald Trump did? Was he 
interested in a free, open, fair election? Donald Trump tried to 
pressure local officials to overturn a democratic election in America. 
It was a stress test on our democracy unlike any in recent history, but 
our institutions held. So now what do Republicans want to do? Change 
the results. Change the election officials.
  Again, Trump tried to pressure local officials to overturn democratic 
elections in a huge stress test on our democracy. Our institutions 
held. Local officials certified election results. The courts rejected 
spurious claims of fraud. Vice President Pence, no less, opened the 
proper envelopes. The House and Senate came together to count the 
results of the electoral college in the immediate aftermath of an armed 
insurrection.
  Now--now--because they couldn't win the election and our 
institutions, our democratic--small ``d,'' democratic--institutions 
held, they want to change who is running the elections to be partisan 
and biased. Republican State legislatures are actively removing many of 
the barriers that prevented Donald Trump from subverting our elections. 
Shame. Shame. Shame.
  I lay all this information at the feet of my Republican colleagues: a 
sweeping effort to disenfranchise millions of voters, mostly Black and 
Brown students, the working poor; an attack on the checks that held our 
democracy together in the face of Donald Trump's assaults. Many of us 
wondered: Will these institutions hold? Would Trump-appointed judges 
tell the Trump lawyers that they were full of bunk and there wasn't 
fraud? They did. It was a glorious moment for our democracy, and the 
Republican majority here in the Senate wants to undo it and doesn't 
even want to debate it.
  We can argue what should be done to protect voting rights and 
safeguard our democracy, but don't you think we should be able to 
debate the issue? The vote tomorrow is on, to my people watching. It is 
called a motion to proceed. It is how we get bills on the floor of the 
Senate. It needs 60 votes to be able to be debated. Will our 
Republicans let us debate it? That is the only question on the table 
for the U.S. Senate tomorrow, and we are about to find out how my 
Republican colleagues will answer that question.
  I yield the floor.

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