[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 107 (Monday, June 21, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4659-S4660]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FOR THE PEOPLE ACT OF 2021

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I want to speak briefly this evening 
about S. 1, the Senate version of H.R. 1, the democracy reform bill 
that we are going to be considering moving to proceed to this week, and 
I hope we will be able to show a unified Democratic Caucus moving to 
proceed.
  It is often described as the voting rights bill, and it is described 
that way with good justification because there are some very, very 
important protections that are built into it to protect the voting 
rights of Americans which are under, I would say, a unique and historic 
threat now since the, perhaps, 1950s and 1960s, when the Voting Rights 
Act was passed and some of the levers that were pulled to keep certain 
people from voting had to be stopped and the vote and the ballot became 
available much more broadly and led to a much more just society.
  But that is not the only part of S. 1. In fact, in my view, it is not 
even the central part of S. 1. In my view, the central part of S. 1 is 
getting big, unlimited, anonymous money out of politics.
  Now, the two relate because the big, anonymous money schemers that 
are up to no good in politics are focusing on--guess what? Voter 
suppression. And, in fact, the same individual, the same person who was 
running the dark money scheme to control and capture the Supreme Court 
and the circuit courts has--after being somewhat blown up by a 
Washington Post expose about the $250 million he was running in dark 
money through this court-capture scheme--jumped from court-capture 
scheme, and where did he land? On something rather ironically called 
the Honest Elections Project, which immediately went to work to file 
lawsuits and harass election officials and try to make sure that voter 
suppression took place.
  If you think that is a coincidence, the Honest Elections Project is 
actually a rebrand of an entity that was called the Judicial Education 
Project--basically, just a name change through corporate hijinks. And 
that Judicial Education Project is the corporate sibling of something 
called the Judicial Crisis Network.
  And guess what the Judicial Crisis Network did? For this same guy, 
before he jumped to voter suppression, when he was still doing court 
capture, the Judicial Crisis Network took the big, fat checks that 
anonymous donors wrote to pay for the TV campaigns--the dark money TV 
campaigns--against Garland and for Gorsuch in the first appointment, 
for Kavanaugh through all of his troubles in the second appointment, 
and then for Judge Barrett on the eve of the election in the third 
appointment.
  So, you see, it is the same person and the same organizational 
connection between the court-captured dark money scheme and the voter 
suppression dark money scheme. It is actually happening in kind of 
plain light of day, except that we don't pay enough attention to the 
links.
  So this dark money business, getting the big, dark money out of 
politics, is a big, big deal. And I wanted to share how much of a deal 
it is to Americans. Dark money corruption polls at the top of all the 
issues in the last poll I saw. It is the No. 1 issue. If you ask 
people: If somebody says that they have dedicated themselves to 
fighting corruption, is that going to make you more likely to vote for 
them or more likely for you to vote for their opponent? Among all 
voters, it is 89 to 1 more likely to vote for the candidate dedicated 
to fighting corruption versus whoever this one is who said, no, not 
such a big deal to me.
  Among independent voters whom the two parties always fight for in 
elections, 82 to 2--82 percent of independent voters would be more 
likely to vote for somebody who they see as dedicated to fighting 
corruption, and only 2 would be more likely to vote for their opponent.
  So this is a strong public signal that we are sick of it. And you see 
it over and over again. This is one poll. You can go through poll after 
poll after poll, and you see people want the dark money out of 
politics. They think we are controlled by big special interests. They 
think much too much stuff gets done behind the scenes.
  And, by the way, we just got a little window into the private 
conversations about this that take place between the Koch brothers' 
political apparatus and our minority leader, Mitch McConnell's 
political apparatus.
  Jane Mayer wrote about this recently in the New Yorker. And the Koch 
political apparatus and the Mitch McConnell political apparatus were 
being briefed on this bill, on S. 1, and on these provisions. And what 
they were told by the pollster is: Do you know what? We are in big 
trouble because our conservative voters hate this damn dark money stuff 
just as badly as those liberals do, and we have tried all these 
different ways to reframe this, to make it look bad so they might be 
more against it--none of it worked. None of it worked.
  People want their government cleaned up. They are sick to death of 
big special interest money, and they are particularly sick to death of 
big special interest money that hides behind fake front groups. So it 
is not ExxonMobil or Marathon Petroleum that comes to Rhode Island and 
says, Sheldon Whitehouse is a bum, you should vote against him. No, it 
is under the phony group with a name like Rhode Islanders for Peace and 
Puppies in Prosperity. And all they are is a mail drop.
  Somebody is behind them, and the voters know in Rhode Island there is 
no Rhode Islanders for Peace and Puppies in Prosperity. They know they 
are being had, and they are sick of seeing the ads. And it is not fair 
to them, as citizens, to not know what is going on in the American 
governmental process, going on right in front of them.
  And it matters to them. It really matters to them. It is the single 
most important issue for 55 percent of all voters. And among the 
independent voters we are trying to attract to our separate parties, 58 
percent of independent voters, this question of Big Money corruption 
and government not listening to them, it is the single most important 
issue--the single most important issue.

  Now, make it top three, expand the question. What are the top three 
most important issues that you care about? Eighty-nine percent of all 
voters have this in their top three. Eighty-eight percent of 
independent voters have this in their top three. So let's say you have 
a real concern about healthcare, or let's say you have a real concern 
about voting rights, or let's say you have a real concern about the 
economy--never mind, this is still there in that top three for pretty 
much 9 out of every 10 Americans.
  And what is the level of concern? Very concerned. Very concerned is 
86 percent of all voters and 92 percent of all independent voters. 
About this issue of corruption and money in politics, how concerned are 
you? Eighty-six percent of all voters said very. Ninety-two percent of 
independent voters said very.
  And if you say: OK, let's, again, expand the aperture a little, very 
concerned or somewhat concerned? Are you very concerned or somewhat 
concerned about this dark money corruption, special interest pressure 
in government--98 percent of all voters, 100 percent of independent 
voters. I don't know about you all, but I have looked at a lot of 
polling in my life. Seeing a 100-percent number, that is rare. Every 
single independent voter polled is very or somewhat concerned about 
corruption in our democracy.
  So I can't wait to get onto S. 1. And if our Republican friends want 
to filibuster it and stop us from moving forward, I can't wait to see 
them explain

[[Page S4660]]

to their voters back home why they made the choice to come here and, 
against 89 to 1 for all voters and 82 to 2 for independent voters, take 
that brave fan for dark money and more corruption and more special 
interest pressure in our politics. Good luck with that.
  I hope at some point we bring that fight to the floor and we spend 
weeks on it so that as we go into next year, every single American has 
seen this play out. They have seen that this issue that they are very 
concerned about, that for more than half of them is the single most 
important issue, that there is a party here in the Senate that is 
determined to protect the schemers, the special interests behind the 
dark money corruption. Good luck taking that to the voters in November.
  So to those who are listening and who are thinking: You know, I don't 
see how we get around a filibuster here. I love S. 1. This is a really 
important bill. We have to get there. We hope that the Democrats can 
unite on this, but even then, it is only 50 to 1 or 51 to 1, if the 
Vice President is allowed to vote, and that is not 60, so there is a 
filibuster--my answer is: Give it effort and give it time because once 
Americans--everybody from a Tea Partyer to a Bernie Bro--gets wind of 
which party in here is the party of special-interest dark money, who 
wants to protect that--like I said, single most important issue. People 
go into the voting booth, and they tend to remember the single most 
important issue, the issue that they are very concerned about, that 86 
percent of all voters.
  So I hope we find a good way forward. I think it is important for our 
democracy that the rottenness of all of this come to an end. I don't 
want to see more of these academic studies that show that Congress 
listens to big special interests, provably, statistically, and Congress 
doesn't listen to regular voters, provably, statistically, because of 
this kind of dark money pressure.
  We have got to get beyond that. We have a country out there to put 
back on its feet not only economically, but we ought to be able to hold 
our own heads high about having an honest government that is an example 
to the rest of the world.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.

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