[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 127 (Tuesday, July 20, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4957-S4958]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           For the People Act

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, it has been all political theater all the 
time lately as the Democrats attempt to manufacture a crisis that will 
allow them to pass their partisan Federal takeover of State election 
law.
  There was President Biden's overwrought speech in Philadelphia last 
week warning that election laws being passed in various States are 
``the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and 
fair elections in our history.''
  That is right, in our Nation's history.
  Apparently, post-Civil War voter suppression laws and poll taxes and 
other atrocities don't hold a candle to what is happening today in 
places like Georgia, where--the horror--only election officials will be 
able to hand out water to those in line at the polls.
  Then, of course, there were the Texas Democrats' antics as they flew 
to Washington via a private jet to shut down the Texas Legislature and 
prevent election legislation from being passed there, and the Senate 
Democrats' field hearing in Georgia yesterday to highlight the supposed 
horrors of Georgia's mainstream election law.
  In his speech last week, President Biden mentioned stopping the 
spread of disinformation, which is an ironic statement when the 
Democrats are engaging in one of the most massive campaigns of 
disinformation we have ever seen, because--and let's be very clear--the 
narrative the Democrats are peddling, which is that States are engaging 
in a massive campaign of voter suppression, is simply false.
  In other years, I doubt whether any of the State voting laws that 
have been passed would have been more than a blip in the national news 
because they are nothing more than ordinary, mainstream updates to 
State voting guidelines. The Georgia law that has provoked so much 
Democratic hysteria is not only squarely in the mainstream when it 
comes to State election laws, but it is actually, in some ways, more 
permissive than voting laws in some Democratic-led States.
  A 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.''
  In fact, the piece notes that Georgia's law could ``plausibly even 
increase turnout.''
  Meanwhile, the Washington Post Fact Checker column noted again: ``The 
law does not put up roadblocks to Black Americans registering to 
vote.'' That from the Washington Post Fact Checker.
  And yet Democrats have repeatedly asked us to believe that this law 
is ``Jim Crow on steroids'' and part of ``the most significant test of 
our democracy since the Civil War.'' Those are quotes, actual quotes, 
from Democrats.
  That is right, since the Civil War. Apparently, segregation and the 
horrors of Jim Crow are nothing compared to Georgia's adjustment of its 
regulations on no-excuse absentee voting, which isn't even allowed in 
some Democrat-led States like New York.
  It is almost comical, except that it is not, because there is nothing 
funny about Democrats irresponsibly evoking the horrors of Jim Crow to 
convince Americans that reasonable reforms to election laws are really 
a dastardly plot to suppress votes.
  There is nothing amusing about Democrats attempting to deceive the

[[Page S4958]]

American people in order to pass their election legislation because 
that is exactly--exactly--what Democrats are doing.
  Democrats have been determined to pass H.R. 1, their Federal takeover 
of State election law, since 2019. Back in 2019, of course, they told 
us we needed it because our democracy was broken, but then the 2020 
elections happened and, lo and behold, Democrats won, and all of a 
sudden our democracy was working fine--a record turnout, I might add, 
in the 2020 election, the largest since the year 1900.
  But Democrats still want to pass H.R. 1, now because, as both the 
Speaker of the House and the House Democratic whip have openly 
admitted, they think it will improve their electoral chances, and so 
they have manufactured a crisis in the hope of convincing the American 
people of the need to pass Democratic legislation.
  There is a reason that Senate Democrats haven't managed to pass H.R. 
1 so far, and that is because it is a terrible bill. The bill would 
seize power from States when it comes to regulating and administering 
elections, an authority that States have held, literally, since the 
founding.
  It would implement public funding of political campaigns, which would 
mean that billions of government dollars, money that belongs to the 
American taxpayer, would go to funding yard signs and attack ads--I am 
sure something the American taxpayers would be really happy to see.
  It would impose onerous new requirements and restrictions on 
political speech. It would open up private Americans to retaliation and 
intimidation simply for making a donation to support a cause that they 
believe in.
  It would effectively eliminate States' voter ID requirements. It 
would politicize the IRS by allowing the IRS to consider organizations' 
beliefs when deciding whether or not to grant them tax-exempt status, 
and the list goes on.
  No less an organization than the American Civil Liberties Union 
opposed--opposed--H.R. 1 in the last Congress because the bill would 
``unconstitutionally burden speech and associational rights.''
  Let me just repeat that for emphasis. The American Civil Liberties 
Union opposed this legislation because it would ``unconstitutionally 
burden speech and associational rights.''
  In his speech last week, President Biden expressed concern about 
States like Georgia ``moving from independent election administrators 
who work for the people to polarized state legislatures and partisan 
actors who work for political parties.''
  It made me wonder if the President even knows what is in H.R. 1 
because H.R. 1 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, the FEC would become, to borrow the 
President's words, a partisan actor that works for political parties.
  If the President is concerned about independent election 
administrators becoming partisan actors, perhaps he should take a look 
at revising his party's legislation.
  Since they have so far been unable to get their partisan election 
takeover through the Senate, Democrats are now threatening to include 
election measures in the partisan tax-and-spending bill that they are 
planning to force through Congress using rules which allow them to 
evade objections from the Senate minority.
  Their idea is to provide financial incentives for States to adopt 
Democrats' preferred election standards. I suspect it is an abuse of 
Senate budget rules that will hopefully not make it through the 
legislative process. But it is another disturbing sign of how committed 
Democrats are to shoving through their partisan election measure.
  For the sake of our democracy, let's hope that they will continue to 
be unsuccessful.
  While I am mentioning free speech and troubling narratives coming 
from the White House, I want to mention the White House Press 
Secretary's comments last week.
  The Press Secretary noted that the Biden administration is ``flagging 
problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation'' and later 
stated that if individuals are banned on one social media platform, 
they should be banned on all platforms. Wow.
  Now, there is no question that private companies have the right to 
moderate activity and content on their platforms--although, for the 
sake of the free exchange of ideas and a culture of freedom of speech, 
they should be very transparent, principled, and accountable about 
doing so.
  We all remember the backpedaling that recently occurred when media 
and social media realized that they might have too hastily censored the 
theory that the coronavirus originated in a Wuhan lab.
  But while private companies have a right to police information on 
their sites, the government cannot be in the middle of colluding with 
social media platforms to censor Americans' speech. And the Biden 
administration has no business telling Facebook or Twitter whom they 
should ban from their platforms.
  We condemn governments in other countries, like the Chinese Communist 
Party, that do exactly this. We condemned the Cuban Government just 
last week for shutting down their population's access to the internet 
in the face of widespread protests.
  If the government gets into censoring disinformation on social media, 
as compared to, say, terrorist propaganda, where does it end
  As we are rapidly finding out, ``disinformation'' tends to mean 
whatever those with censorship power want it to mean.
  Is the Biden administration going to start pushing social media 
companies to censor anything that contradicts its narrative on the 
supposed voting rights crisis? Is it going to suggest that anyone 
defending States' election laws is spreading misinformation?
  The best way to counter misinformation about lifesaving vaccines is 
not censorship; it is broadly sharing more persuasive and more accurate 
information.
  The White House Press Secretary's casual admission of a Presidential 
administration actively monitoring Americans and colluding with social 
media companies to censor information is deeply troubling, and I am 
concerned that the Biden administration is moving us down the road 
toward government control of Americans' speech.
  I would like to see the White House worrying about its own campaign 
of disinformation on State voting laws. That would be a better use of 
its time than trampling on freedom of speech by censoring Americans' 
activities on social media.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.