[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 129 (Thursday, July 22, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H3831-H3833]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ABOLISHING THE FILIBUSTER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. And still I rise, Mr. Speaker, and I rise today 
to recognize the more than 50 Texas Democrats, State representatives, 
who have taken a stand for liberty and justice for all and who have 
traversed thousands of miles in the name of government of the people, 
by the people, and for the people.
  I rise to commend and defend those who are making great sacrifices to 
protect free and fair elections. They have left their homes, they have 
left Texas, and they have come all the way to Washington, D.C. They 
have left their families.
  Can you imagine having to leave your home and your family on short 
notice?
  This is not something that they planned. This is not something that 
they had time to think through and to give all of the deliberations and 
considerations that one might give to leaving home for some extended 
period of time, and to be quite candid, not to know exactly how long 
they will be gone from home, some unknown extended period of time. They 
have left their homes, and they have left their families. They have 
left their children.
  Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, simply saying to your child that you 
have a duty to perform, an unexpected duty, not something that you 
wanted to do, but something that you know that you must do in the name 
of government of the people, by the people, and for the people and in 
the name of liberty and justice for all?
  Leaving their children and coming to Washington, D.C., some of them 
had to leave jobs. The Texas legislature doesn't pay a huge sum of 
money to go to serve, some $600 per month.
  So they have left their homes, their families, and their jobs to come 
to Washington, D.C., not to have a vacation and not to have time to 
simply socialize and enjoy themselves, they have come to Washington, 
D.C., because they want to have those of us who have the ability to 
impact free and fair elections with H.R. 1, the For the People Act, to 
impact the ability to make sure that elections are properly protected 
and that the persons who are going to vote have equal access to the 
polls. They want us to pass H.R. 4, once we file it again, the John 
Lewis Voting Rights Act, one that would advance voting rights, I might 
add.
  So they have come here to appeal to us to protect liberty and justice 
for all when it comes to voting, to protect government of the people, 
by the people, and for the people because it is the vote that accords 
us this opportunity to govern in a fashion that Lincoln called to our 
attention in the Gettysburg Address.
  They have come to Washington, D.C., to the citadel of democracy in 
the United States of America, and they are prepared to stay as long as 
it takes so that they may do what many people would admire them for 
doing but not everyone would do.
  They are here to break the quorum so that the Texas Statehouse cannot 
pass laws that are invidiously discriminating. Invidious discrimination 
is a term that I like very much because it means harmful 
discrimination. Not all discrimination is harmful. But they are here to 
fight against invidious discrimination, and they come here asking us to 
take a stand with them. They are breaking a quorum.
  Now, there are those who contend that what they are doing is what we 
are contending that the Senate should not do. Not true. That is not 
true. They are breaking a quorum. They are preventing the Statehouse in 
Texas from going forward, and they are doing it with a rule that 
requires at least two-thirds to be present for business to be lawfully 
conducted. Well, here in Washington, D.C., we have a filibuster rule.

  A filibuster means very simply this: one Member can decide that he or 
she would not have legislation go forward. Once that decision has been 
made by one Member, Mr. Speaker, you can only break that filibuster 
with something called cloture, meaning you now have to get 60 votes 
before you can pass legislation with 51 votes assuming all Senators are 
present and voting.
  This rule, the filibuster rule, is something that is not necessary. 
It is something that has been employed by segregationists. It is a 
favorite tool of

[[Page H3832]]

those who have discriminated against us when it comes to civil rights 
and human dignity in this country.
  As an example, Southern segregationist Democrats--that is right, I 
said Democrats--unified in opposition to civil rights regularly 
employed the filibuster and prevented cloture. They successfully 
employed the filibuster to thwart all nearly 200 anti-lynching 
measures. They prevented a vote on several substantial civil rights 
bills.
  Senator Strom Thurmond in 1957 took on a civil rights bill for 24 
hours to filibuster. Former Senator Richard Russell was a leading 
filibuster. Senator Russell was an outspoken opponent of civil rights 
legislation. In 1935 he and his colleagues in the Senate stopped an 
anti-lynching bill with 6 days of nonstop talking. In 1964, he 
filibustered for 60 working days in the Senate opposing civil rights 
legislation. Later, in 1964, Russell and more than a dozen other 
Senators boycotted the Democratic National Convention simply because 
President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
  So this filibuster rule is a rule that I find no favor with. It is a 
rule that has haunted those of us who seek equality and justice in this 
country for everyone. The filibuster rule is not something that is 
necessary, but that is what the Senate can employ. So if there is an 
equivalent of the filibuster rule in the Senate as it relates to the 
Texas house, then I might not have a problem with it.
  But, Mr. Speaker, here is the problem: in the Senate, to avoid having 
the necessary number to pass legislation, constitutionally, you have to 
have 51 votes. You have to ``break'' the ability to pass votes with 51. 
So if the Senate in this United States Capitol would do what those who 
have come here from Texas would do, then we would have to have them 
bring 51 people away from the floor to prevent the number necessary to 
have a quorum. They would have to break a quorum. They don't have to 
break a quorum now. They but only have to indicate they would like to 
filibuster, and, in so doing, we would have to in the Senate here in 
Washington, D.C., get 60 votes before we can vote to pass something 
with 51 votes.
  I believe that we ought to eliminate the filibuster. I think then if 
the Senate would want to do what these brave Texas Democrats have done, 
then they would have to break the quorum by having 51 people stay away 
from the Senate floor. Right now, they don't have to have anyone stay 
away from the Senate floor. It is easy to do what they have done. The 
Texas Democrats have done something courageous because they have come 
all the way to Washington, D.C. More than 50 people have aligned 
themselves so that they can provide a means by which we will have the 
opportunity to pass civil rights legislation here--H.R. 1, the For the 
People Act; and H.R. 4 once it is filed again, the John Lewis Voting 
Rights Advancement Act.
  My hope is that we can pass both of these pieces of legislation. My 
hope is that at some point we will eliminate the filibuster. There are 
those who would say: If you eliminate the filibuster, at some point it 
will come back to haunt you because the laws that you pass to eliminate 
it, others can pass laws to reinstate whatever you have eliminated.
  I believe, Mr. Speaker, that if you pass good laws, it would be very 
difficult to turn them over simply on a whim. I believe that a good 
example of this is the law that we passed to accord healthcare to 
people who didn't have it in this country, ObamaCare as it is called, 
but more technically speaking, it is the Affordable Care Act. The 
Affordable Care Act has afforded people the opportunity to have good 
insurance.
  Prior to the Affordable Care Act there were people who thought they 
had good insurance. They paid their premiums timely. They thought they 
had good insurance until they had to use it, and it was at this point 
that they found out just how good their insurance was or how poorly 
they had decided to buy policies that were what were called junk 
insurance. They didn't know because they didn't need it, and they were 
paying something that they thought was reasonable for what they thought 
was coverage that did not exist.
  When we passed the law that allowed for persons to have good 
insurance, the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, when we 
passed this law, we then put ourselves in a position such that it could 
be challenged, and for years it has been challenged. For years there 
have been efforts to overturn it. For years persons have said: We will 
repeal and replace.
  They never ever considered what the replacement would be going 
forward with the repeal. To this day the Affordable Care Act still 
stands.
  Mr. Speaker, if you pass good legislation, then you don't have to 
concern yourself with the ability of others on a whim to simply 
overturn it because they don't like it, because it somehow has given 
people opportunities that perhaps they didn't foresee or believe were 
appropriate. The Affordable Care Act is good legislation, and as a 
result many people have had the opportunity to have healthcare that 
they ordinarily would not have.

                              {time}  1330

  Mr. Speaker, I believe we should eliminate the filibuster as we have 
it here. I believe we should resort to what the State of Texas has, 
which is a requirement that you have X number of senators present to 
make a quorum. It is the quorum that the representatives from Texas 
have challenged. In Washington, D.C., it is a filibuster that one 
person can call to the attention of the Senate and use to thwart 
legislation.
  If we go to a quorum here in Washington, D.C., then let the Senators 
come up with 51 people who will not show up so that they can prevent 
legislation from going forward. That would be the equivalent of what is 
happening in the State of Texas. A quorum is being challenged. There is 
no filibuster that is being challenged. It is a quorum.
  I congratulate them and salute them and commend them for challenging 
this quorum, to prevent laws from being passed that will thwart the 
efforts of people to vote who sometimes don't have the opportunity to 
vote that I might have, that many of us would have here.
  I see nothing wrong with having the ability to vote 24 hours a day. 
Apparently, some in the State of Texas do. I remember when we had that 
opportunity in Texas. In this legislation, as being proposed, it would 
be eliminated. I went out to the polls at midnight, and I greeted 
people who were coming to vote. I saw people who were leaving work; 
people who found it beneficial to have the opportunity to come to the 
polling place at midnight and cast their votes because they are 
hardworking people, and they sleep during hours that others of us are 
awake.
  I thought it was a wonderful thing to see this voting for 24 hours a 
day. It is a wonderful thing to know that people can have the 
opportunity to do this and go right home after work. Not everybody gets 
off from work at 5 o'clock. Many people don't get off from work until 
11 or 12 o'clock. So this opportunity to vote for 24 hours a day was 
something very beneficial to a good many of my constituents in the 
State of Texas.
  Unfortunately, it was not something that others approved of and said 
that they disapprove of it because it wasn't something that was being 
done prior to COVID. There are people who said it was never done at any 
place in the country before. Since when do we decide that we will not 
do things because they have never been done before? If we decide that 
we will only do things that have been done before, where will we have 
the opportunity to make progress? How can you move forward if you 
decide that you are going to stagnate yourself?
  We haven't always had electronic ballots. We can still vote with 
paper ballots if we choose, but we have chosen to move forward. We 
haven't always had Sunday voting, but we now vote on Sundays. We 
haven't always had 24-hour voting, and I contend we ought to have the 
opportunity to do this now.
  Mr. Speaker, I contend to my dear friends that it is our duty and 
responsibility to make it easier for people to vote. This is what the 
State of Texas says that it is doing, it is making it easier for people 
to vote. How are you making it easier if you are going to limit the 
times that people can vote? How are you making it easier if you make it 
harder for people to vote by mail? How are you making it easier if

[[Page H3833]]

you don't have the boxes so that people can simply drop--safe and 
secure, by the way--safely and securely drop their ballots off in 
various places around the county? You are not making it easier. You are 
making it more difficult under the guise of making it easier.
  So I contend that these Democrats who have traversed this great 
distance, who have come to Washington, D.C. as a means of showing the 
world that there are still people who will take a stand for liberty and 
justice for all, for government of the people, by the people, for the 
people, and protect the right to vote. They are defenders of the 
democracy when they do this, because the very seat of democracy, the 
very thing that democracy resides upon is the notion of having a free 
and fair election. You can't have a free and fair election if you don't 
have equal access to the polls.
  You can't have a free and fair election if you don't have the 
opportunity to register and vote without certain impediments to your 
registering to vote. That would create a poll tax. Let me explain.
  I went to the polls in Texas to test the system that was in place. I 
tried to vote with my congressional ID card, the card that I can use to 
vote on issues related to the budget of the United States of America; 
the card that I can use to vote on issues related to war and peace. I 
could not vote with it. I tested the system. I did have the proper 
credentials, but I wanted to test the system.
  The system required me, if I am going to acquire the ID in Texas to 
vote, it required me to get my birth certificate. If you live in Texas, 
you can get this ID at no cost. But I was born in Louisiana. I live 
there, but I was born in Louisiana. Persons who were born in Texas, you 
can get the ID at no cost. I applied for my ID in Louisiana.
  There were some complications with my birth certificate. To this day, 
I have not received the ID that I applied for; and that was years ago. 
The point is this: If we are going to have an ID card and contend that 
it is free to persons who cannot afford the cost of an ID card, we have 
to make sure that it is free for persons who are not born in Texas who 
don't have access to birth certificates, who will have to send out of 
State.
  In this country, we don't conclude that you should pay a fee to vote, 
even if that fee is to get a birth certificate. I contend that this is 
a way of having a new form of a poll tax. Knowing that college students 
in the State of Texas who want to vote in the State of Texas to get a 
proper ID to vote, if it is going to be a State ID or an ID that they 
don't have for Texas purposes, they will have to get some form of birth 
certificate or proof of birth in the State of Texas or in this country. 
They have to present this.
  They know that college students can't present it if they were from 
California and they are in Texas and they have a California 
identification that does not necessarily require the birth certificate, 
then they don't accept this. There is a list of the things that can be 
accepted, and college student IDs have been excluded from the list.

  Mr. Speaker, I stand here today saluting them for what they have 
done, understanding that they are doing all that they can to make a 
difference, and understanding that they are appealing to us, the 
Members of this House, to help them, to be a part of their effort to 
get H.R. 1 and H.R. 4 passed here so as to prevent those in Texas who 
would thwart the rights of persons to vote from being able to do so if 
we can pass some of our legislation.
  One piece of legislation, H.R. 4, is exceedingly important, because 
H.R. 4 will bring back the opportunity for people in the State of Texas 
to challenge changes in laws without a preclearance by the Justice 
Department or a Federal court that might be here in Washington, D.C.
  H.R. 4 would restore the Voting Rights Act that was eviscerated when 
section 4 of the Voting Rights Act was found unconstitutional. When it 
was eliminated, eviscerated, if you will, it emasculated section 5 of 
the Voting Rights Act. Section 4 was the coverage area, so that section 
5 could then require these other things that would help persons who are 
trying to prevent States like Texas from doing things that were 
egregious as it relates to the right to vote.
  Section 4 would be restored, and as a result, we would again have 
coverage for States like Texas, States like Texas in Harris County 
where I live, that had White primaries. The State of Texas had these 
White primaries and a man named Lonnie Smith took the State of Texas 
all the way to the Supreme Court to challenge White primaries. The 
White primaries were set aside. The Supreme Court said: You can't do 
that.
  Well, in an adjoining county, there were White pre-primaries. The 
State of Texas has been a bad actor for a long time. These persons who 
have come here, these noble freedom fighters have come here to solicit 
our support and our help. And I hope that the United States Senate will 
at some point eliminate the filibuster. But if not, I trust that there 
will be 60 persons who will help us get to cloture so that we can take 
up H.R. 1 and H.R. 4, laws that will help us restore the right to vote 
for all of Americans without these impediments that are being imposed 
in States across the country.
  To honor them, we have a resolution that we are filing. This 
resolution is going to honor them for what they have done in coming to 
Washington, D.C. It will honor them for the stand that they have taken. 
This resolution will be signed by the members of the Texas Democratic 
delegation and filed with the House of Representatives.
  We also are sending a letter to the President of the United States, a 
second letter, asking the President to please meet with them, not in 
person, but meet with them virtually. Meet with them and hear their hue 
and their cry, their appeal for help. I am sure the President 
understands the issue, so it is not about convincing the President. It 
is about letting them have the opportunity to speak and letting the 
President know that they stand firm on the grounds of providing liberty 
and justice for all, government of the people, by the people, for the 
people.
  Finally, I am here this afternoon, because I believe that we all have 
to be accountable for what we do. I believe that we all have to, at 
some point, answer for the positions that we have or have not taken. I 
am here representing not only myself but other Democrats who could not 
be here. They are persons who support what we are doing. They are 
persons who are members of the Texas Democratic delegation.
  They have demonstrated that they are standing in solidarity with the 
members from Texas who are here representing those in Texas who believe 
that there should not be these laws passed to thwart the efforts to 
vote. But the members of the Texas Democratic delegation are standing 
absolutely, totally, and completely in solidarity with the Texas State 
representatives who are here. And my hope is, that as we stand in 
solidarity with them, we will at some point achieve our goal. Our goal 
is simply this: to make sure that in Texas we have free and fair 
elections.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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