[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 159 (Wednesday, September 15, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6519-S6524]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Freedom to Vote Act
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in support
of very important new legislation, the Freedom to Vote Act, that I
introduced yesterday with the members of the Voting Rights Working
Group assembled by Leader Schumer, which includes Senator Manchin;
Senator Merkley, who is here with us today on the floor and who has
been such a leader on voting issues, including the For the People Act;
Senator Padilla; and Senators King, Kaine, Tester, and Warnock.
The freedom to vote is fundamental to all of our freedoms. Following
the 2020 elections in which more Americans voted than ever before, in
the middle of a public health crisis, we have seen unprecedented
attacks on our democracy in States across the country. These attacks
demand an immediate Federal response.
The Freedom to Vote Act will set basic national standards to make
sure all Americans can cast their ballots in the way that works best
for them, regardless of what ZIP Code they live in.
I want to thank Senator Schumer for his leadership in pulling
together our working group that got this legislation across the finish
line and, as I mentioned, Senators Merkley and Manchin for their work
on this crucial bill.
It has been over 8 months since that violent mob of insurrectionists
stormed through this very spot and desecrated our Capitol, the temple
of our democracy. They opened the desks in this Chamber. They got up
and sat at that desk where you are sitting now, Mr. President. It was
an attack on our Republic.
And as I said from the inaugural stage just 2 weeks later under that
beautiful blue sky, at the very place where you could still see the
spray paint at the bottom of the columns and the makeshift windows
behind us, ``This is the day our democracy picks itself up, brushes off
the dust, and does what America always does: goes forward as a nation,
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.''
We took back our democracy that day with Democrats, Republicans, and
Independents all sitting at that platform, seeing a new President and
Vice President be inaugurated. We took back our democracy that day, and
we will take it back this day with this new bill, with the support of
78 percent of Americans who favor 2 weeks of early voting, a very
important provision in this bill, and 83 percent of voters who support
public disclosures of all contributions. We will take it back again
from those who are trying to take away people's constitutional right to
vote.
With over 400 bills introduced in nearly every State to limit the
freedom to vote, we can't simply sit back and watch our democracy be
threatened again. Whether it is threatened with bear spray and crowbars
and axes or long lines or the elimination of ballot boxes or the secret
money, it is still under siege. When we are faced with a coordinated
effort across the country to limit the freedom to vote, we must stand
up and do what is right.
Sometimes people say: What is going on? It worked so well during the
pandemic, during a public health crisis. More people voted than ever
before.
Well, that is because they voted by mail. That is because some
States, both blue States and red States, changed their laws to make it
easier to vote, while still protecting the sanctity of the vote.
So why is this happening? Well, I think our colleague Senator Rev.
Raphael Warnock put it best when he said: ``Some people don't want some
people to vote.'' We will not stand for that because that is not how a
democracy works.
Leader Schumer has said he will bring this new bill to a vote as soon
as next week because we know our democracy cannot wait. This bill
builds on the framework put forward by Senator Manchin in June and
includes many of the key reforms in the For the People Act,
guaranteeing all Americans, as I noted, access to at least 15 days of
early voting, including weekends.
Look at what just happened in Georgia. We just had a field hearing
down there with the Rules Committee. In Georgia, all of a sudden they
passed a law that says, yeah, you can vote on weekends early on, but
when it counts in a runoff period, in those last 28 days, you can't
vote on weekends anymore. That is only done for one reason: to make it
harder for people to vote. That is why this bill is so important.
What else does it do? It ensures that all voters can cast a mail-in
ballot and makes it easier to register to vote. That is pretty
important as we see Republican, Democrat, and Independent voters all
across this country wanting to be able to cast mail-in ballots. It is
the safest way for so many of them to vote, even today.
Some States even required them to get a notary signature in the
middle of a pandemic, through a glass window, when they were in the
hospital. You wonder why we want to have some Federal minimum standards
in place.
What else? Increased transparency through the DISCLOSE Act. I already
noted that over 80 percent of people in this country want to see that,
whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. It would
require super-PACs and issue advocacy groups to disclose donors who
contribute more than $10,000 and stop the use of transfers between
organizations to cloak the identity, to hide the identity of the source
of those contributions.
It would counter partisan interference in election administration and
protect election officials because not only do we need to make sure
people can vote, we need to make sure their vote is counted.
It would prevent voter purges by requiring States to use objective
and reliable evidence to remove voters and prohibit the targeting of
voters solely because they haven't voted recently, while giving
election administrators flexibility to remove voters based on State
records.
As Stacey Abrams has said, if you don't go to a meeting for a while,
do you lose your right to assemble? No, you don't. If you don't go to a
church or a synagogue or a mosque for a while, do you lose your right
to exercise your right to religion? No, you don't. You shouldn't lose
your right to vote.
It would also prohibit partisan gerrymandering, this bill will, so
that voters choose their elected officials, not the other way around.
Now, my home State of Minnesota is a great example of how this can
all work. When you make it easier for people to vote, they will vote. I
never see this as a partisan issue.
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In election after election, our State leads the Nation in voter
turnout because we have things like, now, no-excuse voting by mail or
46 days of early voting. Our bill doesn't go that far because we are
setting minimum standards, but that is what we have in our State--and
same-day voter registration.
And what has happened as a result? High voter turnout every time.
Whom have we elected? Well, we have elected Democratic Governors like
our Governor, Tim Walz; we have elected Republican Governors like Tim
Pawlenty; and we have elected Independents like Jesse Ventura. But what
have I noticed? People feel like they are part of the democracy because
we make it easier for them to vote.
These policies that ensure Minnesotans continue to hold the coveted
title of first in voter turnout--very close to the Presiding Officer's
State of Colorado--are overseen by our secretary of state, Steve Simon,
who continues to push for improvements in our elections.
The freedom to vote is fundamental to all our freedoms. Protecting it
has not always been easy. Throughout our country's 245-year history, we
have had to course correct and take action to ensure that our democracy
for the people, by the people actually lives up to its ideals.
Voting is how Americans control their government and hold elected
officials accountable. It was the founding principle of our country,
and it has stood the test of wars, economic strife, and a global
pandemic. But as we have seen in States like Georgia, Florida, Iowa,
Montana, and most recently Texas, we are up against a coordinated
attack aimed at limiting the freedom to vote. This demands a Federal
response.
And the Constitution could not be clearer. It says right there that
Congress can make or alter laws regarding Federal elections.
Just last week, legislation in Texas was signed into law that makes
it harder to vote, and many States already are underway drawing new
congressional maps. Without this bill, there will be nothing to limit
many States from drawing gerrymandered maps that will distort the
voices of Americans not just for 1 year but for the next decade.
The urgency for a Federal response is why, as chairwoman of the
Senate Rules Committee, I have worked to ensure that voting rights are
a priority. It is why one of our first hearings this year was on the
For the People Act and why--and I see Reverend Warnock here--we took
the Rules Committee on the road to Georgia in its first field hearing
in 20 years.
And just last month, Senator Baldwin and I held a roundtable
discussion in Wisconsin on what has been happening in that State and
what would have been put into law, including only having one ballot
dropoff box in the entire city of Milwaukee if the Governor hadn't
stood in and vetoed it.
And we are not done yet because these discussions with voters are the
most pressing testament that the threat to the freedom to vote is very
real and affecting people of all walks of life across the country. We
can't sit back idly and watch our democracy be threatened. As President
Biden said in Philadelphia, the fight to protect the right to vote is
the ``test of our time.''
Americans have fought and died to protect this freedom, and 56 years
after the Voting Rights Act was passed by this Chamber and signed into
law, we are still continuing this fight.
We have asked our colleagues from the other side of the aisle to join
us on this bill. We have made many, many, many changes to this
legislation in response to concerns they have raised, in response to
concerns Senator Manchin raised, in response to concerns that
secretaries of state have made across the country. We have adapted this
bill to make it much easier to implement in rural areas, in small
towns.
We are proud of this legislation. Yet what do we hear from the other
side of the aisle? Well, over the last few months, one of their
refrains which I find so amusing is they say this will somehow result
in chaos. Truly?
Chaos is a 5-hour wait to vote in the Sun in Georgia without food or
water. Chaos is purging eligible voters from voter rolls and
prohibiting mail-in ballot drop boxes and having only one in the
entirety of Harris County in Texas for 5 million people. Chaos is
voters in Wisconsin waiting in line to vote for hours in the rain,
wearing homemade face masks and plastic garbage bags. That angry mob on
January 6 that came right into this Chamber, that was chaos.
You want to stop the chaos: Federal minimum voting standards. Telling
extremists they can't spend millions on sham audits, that stops the
chaos. Getting dark money out of our politics, that stops the chaos.
And making sure that people have a voice by ending partisan
gerrymandering, that stops the chaos.
So, once again, I urge my Republican colleagues to recognize the work
being done in many of their own States to restrict the freedom of
Americans to exercise their sacred right to vote. Our Nation was
founded on the ideals of democracy, and as we have seen for ourselves
in this very building, we cannot afford to take it for granted.
We have so much work to do. Voting rights reform, this bill,
guaranteeing the freedom to vote, is about the salvation of our very
democracy. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting the Freedom to
Vote Act.
Mr. President, I see my colleagues. Senator Merkley, such a great
leader on the For the People bill, and Senator Warnock, such a great
leader, new in the Senate but already establishing himself across the
country and in Georgia as a leader on voting rights, are both here.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I so much appreciate the words of my
colleague from Minnesota, who has brought the Rules Committee to bear
in a maximum capacity to fight to defend the freedom to vote for all
Americans.
When I was in high school, I had the opportunity to live in West
Africa under a dictatorship as an exchange student. And in that
country, the military dictatorship would exist until there was a new
military coup, and then there would be another military dictatorship.
And that happened time after time after time.
So, as a 16-year-old, I saw the contrast between a nation where
citizens had no voice in the future of their country versus the United
States of America, where the foundation of our Republic, the core
vision of our Nation is that each citizen has the opportunity to
participate, to fight to help shape the American dream, the path into
the future, to the benefit of a better nation.
President Johnson noted that the ballot box is so essential that
``the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised . . . for
breaking down injustice.'' Really, that ballot box is the pulsating
heart of our democracy.
President Lincoln, when he was speaking at Gettysburg--speaking that
the soldiers who died there did not die in vain because they fought to
preserve the vision of government of, by, and for the people, that it
shall not perish from this Earth. Well, it is the vote that preserves
the vision of government of, by, and for the people. It is free access
to the ballot box.
Over the course of our history, we have sought to fulfill that vision
through the 13th and 14th Amendments, through the 15th Amendment,
through the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But here we find, at this moment
in our history, the right to vote is under attack once again. Some 18
States have passed some 30 laws trying to target specific groups of
individuals and prevent them from being able to vote. These strategies
in State after State are to make it harder to vote and easier to cheat.
Well, I will tell you what this bill does that we are talking about
today, the Freedom to Vote bill. It makes it easier to vote and harder
to cheat. It takes on three key forms of corruption that are haunting
our election system.
First, it takes on dark money--dark money unleashed by Citizens
United that allows billionaires to buy elections around this country.
Do a poll of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents and ask
``Should we have this dark money, source unknown, haunting our election
system, producing all of those attack ads, and you have no idea where
they came from?'' and citizens of every political stripe will say
``Absolutely not.''
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Dark money, the hidden manipulation of the elections by the
powerful--buying these vast sets of television ads, trying to destroy
the character of candidates in order to manipulate the outcome--should
not exist. It is in the DNA of Americans that this is a corrupting
force. Well, this bill takes on the dark money.
The second thing that it takes on is gerrymandering. Gerrymandering
is where districts are drawn to favor one political party over the
other. Ask Americans across this country ``Is it right that politicians
should choose their voters rather than voters choosing their
politicians?'' and they will say ``No.'' Ask if they believe in the
vision of equal representation as a key to a just society, and they
will say yes. They want equal representation. Republicans say yes.
Democrats say yes. Independents say yes.
This bill takes on gerrymandering and puts an end to it with national
standards for redistricting.
Now, let's turn to the ballot box. I never thought I would live to
see the day that we go into a time machine and return to before 1965,
in which one of the two parties is determined to block targeted groups
from voting--to target Black Americans from voting, Hispanic Americans
from voting, low-income Americans from voting, college students from
voting. This is completely un-American. This is racist. It is a past
that we had proudly put behind us, but this bigoted past has arisen to
haunt us once again in these some 30 laws in some 18 States, targeting
specific groups of Americans.
This bill says that strategy of cheating on election day by trying to
block targeted groups from voting will not stand. We will make it
easier to register. That is what this bill does. We will make it easier
to vote before election day to undermine those election-day
shenanigans. We will have 15 days of early voting. We will have the
opportunity for voting by mail. We will make sure that our I.D. laws
are not used in a fashion to favor one party over the other. These are
core protections against these strategies designed to disenfranchise
Americans and manipulate the outcome of elections.
I will tell you what else this law does. It takes on election
subversion. We have seen strategies of election subversion in many of
those State laws. So this bill says: You know what. No, you cannot have
frivolous challenges where one person stands at a poll and challenges
the legitimacy of every single person who comes into that poll place in
order to make it hard for people in a certain location to vote.
It protects election officials from improper removal. It protects
election workers from intimidation and harassment. It preserves
election records so they cannot be manipulated. It guarantees that we
have paper ballots that can be recounted. It prevents observer
interference in the elections. It makes sure that people in line, if
something terrible should happen and those lines are long, will still
be able to have access to water and food, which is a strategy that has
been now employed by several States, to say: You know what. On election
day, we are going to make sure targeted precincts have long lines, and
then we are going to say you can't even get a sip of water from a
friend in that line, in order to try to stop people from voting.
Wow--the lengths these Republican house, statehouse, and State
senators and Governors are going to stop people from voting. We have
seen the strategies in the past. We have seen eliminating the number of
precinct voting locations to make it harder for targeted areas to vote.
We have seen locating them in new locations to confuse people. We have
seen false information put out about where the locations are to make it
harder to vote. We have seen the understaffing of key places to create
long lines. Well, early voting, vote-by-mail, and protections in this
bill stop these efforts to cheat in elections across our country.
So we are defending that most powerful instrument ever devised by
human beings for breaking down injustice with this Freedom to Vote
bill. We are defending the right of every American to cast a ballot. We
are fighting against the big three corruptions infesting, if you will,
our election system across the country. This should be passed 100 to 0.
I invite my Republican colleagues to remember the oath they took to
the Constitution and to remember that the right to vote is at the very
heart of that Constitution and join us in these core protections and to
pass the Freedom to Vote Act on the floor of the Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. WARNOCK. Mr. President, I am proud to stand on the Senate floor
today with my colleagues Senator Klobuchar and Senator Merkley in
support of the new Freedom to Vote Act that we just introduced. I want
to talk about why it is so important, so urgent that Congress act right
now to protect the sacred right to vote that is under assault across
our Nation, but first I want to thank my friends who worked with me to
get us to this point: Senator Klobuchar, who has worked on this issue
for so long; Senator Merkley also; Senator Manchin; and Senators
Schumer, Padilla, Kaine, King, and Tester. Our work is a testament to
Democrats' commitment to protecting access to the ballot box for every
eligible voter.
I think it is important to remind us that we were blocked from
debating this issue in June. It bears repeating so that the American
people understand that that is what got stopped in June--not the actual
bill but the ability to debate the bill on the Senate floor. But I am
proud that our group was able to come together. We decided that we were
not about to let this fight to protect voting rights die in this
Congress.
Passing voting rights is the most important thing we can do in this
Congress because if we are going to lengthen and strengthen the cords
of our democracy, that won't just happen. We will have to work for it.
We will have to fight for it. We will have to stand up for it. And that
is what we intend to do.
That is why we worked on this bill through the negotiations on the
bipartisan infrastructure deal. That work is very important. I have
often said regarding our infrastructure work that America needs a home
improvement project; that that work is not only an infrastructure bill,
it is a jobs bill desperately needed. We have to build back better and
create infrastructure so that families can thrive, so that workers can
be engaged in the work that grows our economy, creates more jobs. But
even while that work was going forward during the August recess, we
were focused on writing this bill.
The Freedom to Vote Act will improve access to the ballot for all
eligible Americans by setting national standards for absentee voting,
early voting, and in-person voting. It will make sure that the drop box
is available for workers. It will enable the work that is so necessary
to strengthen our democracy.
This bill will end partisan gerrymandering--yet another way in which
the voices of ordinary people are squeezed out of their democracy--and
it will advance commonsense reforms to secure our elections.
I am especially proud that this bill specifically addresses the wave
of voter suppression laws we have seen take root in my home State of
Georgia and all across this country since January. What kind of
Congress would we be if we did not respond to all of these voter
suppression bills that are mushrooming all over the country; a violent
insurrection on this very Capitol, driven by the Big Lie, metastasized
into a kind of voter suppression cancer all across the body politic?
This is our moment, and this is the work that we must do. So I am
proud that this bill includes provisions from my Preventing Election
Subversion Act that will prevent what we are seeing in places like
Fulton County, GA, right now, where partisan actors will interfere with
the work of local officials, taking over the election, subverting the
will of the people even while the votes are still being cast.
It will also prevent a neighbor from leveraging baseless challenges
to a voter's ability to cast a ballot and have it counted. Imagine
that. And that is one of the provisions in SB 202 down in Georgia. Your
neighbor can decide to challenge countless numbers of people and their
right and legitimacy in casting their ballots--tie up the whole system
with these kinds of baseless accusations. How will it be possible to
certify any election?
Simply put, the Freedom to Vote Act is all about securing our
elections and
[[Page S6522]]
making the ballot box accessible so that every eligible American can
exercise that basic right, the right to vote, no matter where they
live.
As we do this work, as challenging as it is, as disappointing as it
was to have our beloved colleagues on the other side of the aisle block
debate, I am not discouraged in this moment. I am encouraged by the
voices and the legacy of those who committed to the idea of freedom.
John Lewis was my parishioner, and although he has transitioned to
eternity, his advice still echoes in the Halls of this Congress.
Every Member of this Chamber ought to be able to get behind voting
rights. It is the only reason we are here in the first place. I hope my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle will cosponsor and support the
Freedom to Vote Act.
I look forward to talking with Democrats and Republicans about how we
can get this done while we continue working on economic and
infrastructure packages, because we have to walk and chew gum at the
same time. We have to repair our country's infrastructure, but we also
have to protect and repair the infrastructure of our democracy. It is
not either/or; it is both/and.
We have always had infrastructure. We have always had roads and
streets--important. We have always had bridges. John Lewis walked
across a bridge in order to repair the infrastructure of our democracy,
a bridge to the future.
I know that some of my friends on the other side of the aisle are
already saying that they are not going to support this bill, but in the
past, I remind them, voting rights legislation has passed out of this
Chamber with strong bipartisan support.
I hope that this day will be no different. I say, at least give this
bill a chance. Come, let us reason together. Let's talk about it. Let's
have the voting rights discussion that we didn't have in June. It is
not too late. Let's have the discussion that the American people
deserve. Let's have an open debate and input from both sides here on
the floor of the U.S. Senate. That is why we were sent here.
There is a lot for my Republican friends to like in this bill. My
Democratic colleagues and I stand ready to hear what you don't like.
Together, we can try to find common ground. I hope my Republican
friends will give this bill fair consideration and that we can get
bipartisan support to get it over the finish line.
Mr. President, as I close, I want to remind all of us that the only
reason we are here in this Chamber at all is because somebody voted for
us. Voting rights is not just some other issue alongside other issues.
It gets to the heart of who we are in the first place--a democracy. We
will always disagree about a whole range of issues, but after
politicians have argued their case about infrastructure, about taxes,
about healthcare, about national security, the most powerful words ever
uttered in a democracy are ``the people have spoken.'' Shame on us if
we allow the people's voices to be silenced in this Chamber.
Voting rights are preservative of all other rights, and right now the
right to vote is under attack. Our democracy is in a 9-1-1 emergency,
and we must act now.
I know that for those who have been in this body for a while, there
is a sense in which you know you offer up proposals and they don't
always make it and you live and you fight another day.
When I look at what is going on across our country, I think that if
we don't address what is happening right now, we will cross a Rubicon
that imperils our democracy for years to come.
I am not about to sit here silently and allow that to happen. Too
many people died. Too much blood was shed. Too many sacrifices were
made. Too much is at stake, and it is beneath the legacy of the
greatest deliberative body on the planet to refuse to even have a
debate about voting rights.
I hope that my beloved colleagues on the other side of the aisle will
come and reason together. Let's pass this out of this Chamber with
strong support. We got some things done this year, but I believe that
if we don't pass voting rights, history will rightly judge us harshly.
Folks who sent us here are counting on us. History is waiting on us.
Our children are watching us. And the great cloud of witnesses--John
Lewis; a white woman named Viola Liuzzo, who died fighting for voting
rights; Abraham Joshua Heschel; Medgar Evers--a great cloud of
witnesses are urging us on to march toward the mark of the High
Calling, the High Calling about our democratic ideals, a nation where
every voice is heard and every vote counts.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I am very proud to stand with my colleagues
on the floor to talk about the Freedom to Vote Act. I was proud to work
with my colleagues over many months--really, my purpose beginning in
May--to help negotiate the bill to a place where it could do what needs
to be done to accomplish the objectives my colleagues have described so
well.
I want to offer just a few words from the heart about why I am so
impassioned about getting this bill done. By my count, there have been
1,994 people who have served in the U.S. Senate--1,994.
One hundred of us share a unique experience. One hundred of us were
here on the only day in the history of this body when we were attacked
by violent insurrectionists attempting to disrupt the peaceful transfer
of power. So from whatever State we represent or whatever our
background, we are unified in having shared an experience never to be
imagined, never to be forgotten, and never to be repeated.
I believe the fact that we shared this experience together with the
Senate staff who were here with us, this puts a unique responsibility
on our shoulders.
First, let's understand what that day was about, that there are some
who are trying to kind of downplay it--it was tourists visiting. We can
laugh that off because we know that wasn't the case. There are others
who are trying to downplay it in other ways--it was a riot, it was a
protest, even that it was a violent protest. That is not what it was.
If it had happened on January 5, it would have been a violent
protest. If it had happened on January 7, it would have been a violent
protest. But it didn't happen on January 5. It didn't happen on January
7. It happened on a day established by law, at a time established by
law, for a purpose established by law to disrupt that purpose.
It was a violent protest organized and inflamed by a President to
occur at precisely the moment that the Congress of the United States
was carrying out the constitutional duty to certify the election of Joe
Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice President of the United
States.
It was designed to disrupt that certification, and it succeeded. For
5 or 6 hours, we were locked out of the Chamber while the rampagers
tried to stop the certification of the election. We were barricaded in
the midst of the peak of the COVID pandemic side by side with staff in
a room as the insurrectionists tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer
of power.
Those words ``peaceful transfer of power,'' ``disrupting,'' what does
that mean?
Let's unpack it further. It was an effort to disenfranchise more than
80 million people in this country who had voted for Joe Biden and
Kamala Harris. It was the single largest effort to disenfranchise
voters in the history of the United States. That is what happened as we
were barricaded first in this building.
And how glad I am that you pages were not here. How glad I am I told
my staff not to come to work that day. No one should have had to
experience that. But it was an effort that succeeded for a period of
hours to disenfranchise more than 80 million people.
Here is a powerful story. On that day, we knew who had been elected
President and Vice President. We knew what the House majority would be,
but we did not know what the Senate majority would be. The Senate
majority wasn't clear in November, and it wasn't clear in December, and
it wasn't even clear on January 5, when my colleague who just spoke,
from Georgia, had his race called that he had won a special election in
Georgia. As we were under attack, it was still in doubt as to who would
be the majority party in the U.S. Senate.
As we were barricaded for hours in the midst of COVID in a room, side
by
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side with television monitors showing us what was happening at the
Capitol, there then came a breaking news report that the last Senate
race had been called in Georgia for Jon Ossoff, and so Democrats would
now have a Senate majority.
I am a religious person. Things happen for a reason. It was unclear
who would be the leadership in the Senate. But in the midst of a
pandemic that had unnecessarily killed 600,000 Americans, and now with
an ongoing attack against the Capitol of the United States--unique in
American history--by people trying to disenfranchise 80 million people,
the news suddenly came: We want new leadership. We need new leadership.
There is a reason for that. There is a reason that it happened in the
middle of this attack. We have a burden on our shoulders to live up to
the responsibility that we--100--uniquely share. That responsibility is
to make sure that no voter--not 80 million, not 10 million, not a
million, not 10, not 1--that no voter is disenfranchised in this
country.
That is why we have been given this unique opportunity to lead at
this moment in time. That is what being victimized by that attack means
in terms of our responsibility to this country and to our history. We
have to carry out that responsibility.
Now, if this were a Hollywood film, what would happen is the
Democrats get the majority, and then all of a sudden we put to rest
disenfranchisement--Democratic majority, we can stop the
disenfranchisement of voters.
But, no, the Big Lie didn't stop. The Big Lie didn't stop when we
found out we had the majority. And this is often the case in powerful
stories in human history. Like, you know, when Moses leads folks
through the Red Sea to the other side, it is not all great as soon as
they get there. They still have work to do.
We got the majority, but we have work to do because in State after
State after State, as my colleagues indicated, legislators in States
where there are Republican Governors and Republican legislative Houses
have thrown up one burden after the next to disenfranchise people, just
as there was an effort to disenfranchise 80 million on January 6.
Let me be clear. These State legislators, they may not be wearing
``Camp Auschwitz'' T-shirts. They may not be carrying Confederate flags
around. They may not be beating up police officers with flag poles or
fence rails, but they are acting out of the same Big Lie that President
Trump repeated ad nauseam when he encouraged people to come and be wild
at the U.S. Capitol to overturn the peaceful transfer of power.
And so the States are embracing these strategies so well described by
my colleagues to make it harder for people to vote, to enable partisan
politicians to take the power to count votes away from electoral
officials if they don't like what that count would show, to even
criminalize people who are trying to help their neighbors vote.
Imagine this: making it a crime to give somebody water as they are
waiting to vote, a crime punishable by up to a $1,000 fine, by up to a
year in jail. This is the same Big Lie tactic that led to the attack on
this body, and it is happening all over this country. There is a burden
uniquely on our shoulders, if we were paying attention on January 6, to
stand boldly to stop it and to stop it once and for all.
That is what the Freedom to Vote Act is about. It is about ensuring
that these mass efforts of disenfranchisement, which reached their most
vivid and flowering in the violent attack on our Capitol, don't occur
and that people have the ability to get access to a ballot and to have
confidence that their ballots will be counted with integrity and that
weird schemes and stunts and penalties and criminal punishment won't be
thrown in their paths by one high hurdle after the next to keep them
from participating in a democracy that we proudly proclaim ourselves to
be. That is why I am so proud to be one of the cosponsors of this bill
with my colleagues.
I was a civil rights lawyer for 17 years. You might think that is why
I like this bill. No. The thing that makes me passionate about the bill
is I was an eyewitness to the biggest disenfranchisement effort in the
history of the United States, and I don't think we can say: Yes, we
were here, and we were eyewitnesses to it. It happened to us and the
people we care about, but there is nothing we can do.
We can't say, after having seen what we have seen and done what we
have done and been where we have been, that there is nothing we can do.
We can't. We have to act.
Let me just conclude and say this: I have been on 10 ballots and been
sworn into office many times as a city councilman, as a mayor, as a
Lieutenant Governor, as a Governor, and as a U.S. Senator. When you get
sworn in, you always say some version of this--it varies slightly in
local and State office, as the Presiding Officer knows, who was also a
mayor and a Governor, and it also has some version of this within it--a
pledge to support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
I had an epiphany in the days after January 6, and the epiphany was
this: When I would take that oath of office, it was just kind of like
the thing you would say so you could do your job. If you had asked me,
``Hey, Senator Kaine,'' or ``Hey, Governor Kaine,'' or ``Hey,
Councilman Kaine, what is your job?'' I would have given you a job
description, and the job description would have been that I want to
build schools; that I want to make sure that our troops have the
resources they need to keep our country safe. I mean, I always had a
job description in my mind. I have been in elected office for 27 years
now. I have always had a job description in my mind: education,
healthcare, defense--the next thing on my ``to do'' list. I always had
a job description in my mind.
Never did I think, until after January 6, that my oath of office was
my job description. We say that oath of office, and we sometimes don't
think about it. No. That oath of office is my job description, and I am
kind of sorry that it took me 27 years to figure that out: to support
and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
foreign and domestic. Those who would disenfranchise 80 million or
those who would disenfranchise 1 are domestic enemies of the
Constitution of the United States.
I have pledged to support and defend that Constitution. This bill--
the debate that we will have and the vote that we will have--is a test
of whether we mean what we say. I so look forward to engaging in this
most important debate with my colleagues in the days to come.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, before I begin, I ask unanimous consent
to deliver a portion of my remarks in Spanish.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, in Spanish, we say ``en Espanol,'' but I
know the Presiding Officer knew that from Colorado.
I rise today, as we mark the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month, to
reflect on a historic leader whose work inspires me in this fight for
voting rights and the work that we have before us.
Willie Velasquez, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
dedicated his life to improving the freedom to vote in Latino
communities.
Everywhere he went, he brought a simple motto. You might have heard
it.
(English translation of the statement made in Spanish is as follows:)
``Your vote is your voice.''
Willie Velasquez was born in 1944 and grew up in a Latino community
in Texas which suffered from the harms of segregation, redlining, and
government neglect. He understood that the path to greater recognition
for Latinos was through participation in our democracy. So Willie set
out to make sure Latinos across the Southwest could participate.
In 1974, Willie Velasquez founded his groundbreaking organization,
the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. Through his
efforts, Willie helped bring the vote--and a powerful voice--to many
Latino communities.
Now, Willie's successes were built on the hard-earned victories of
those of past civil rights leaders. Especially critical was Congress's
1975 extension
[[Page S6524]]
of the Voting Rights Act--yes, a bipartisan reauthorization of the
Federal Voting Rights Act--which established protections for language
minorities, like Spanish speakers. In just 10 years, with Willie's and
other activists' hard work on the ground, the number of Latinos
registered to vote nearly doubled, and in the same 10 years, the number
of Latinos holding elected office also nearly doubled.
That is the power of the freedom to vote and the power of what we can
do here in the Senate and here in Congress--give every American a voice
in our democracy.
Now, in his time, Willie fought to do exactly this, like the
generations of Americans of all ages, colors, creeds, and genders who
came before him. Their efforts reflect a fundamental truth about our
country: We are stronger when more Americans can vote, and we are
stronger when all communities have a say in government. But the path to
realizing our highest ideals has never been easy. From a convention
hall in Seneca Falls to a bridge in Selma, from Willie's home in San
Antonio, TX, to this very Chamber, the voting rights' victories of each
generation have been hard-fought and hard-won, and it is no different
today.
In recent months, we have seen the latest challenge to the core of
our democracy: scores of new laws proposed by Republican State
legislatures to target the past five decades of gains in voting rights;
cynical politicians, spreading false claims of voter fraud because they
fear losing in a fair election. You can see the danger of it even in my
home State of California where, just yesterday, we held a recall
election. Republicans ran a campaign of disinformation, spreading
baseless claims of massive voter fraud before the polls even closed,
before they even opened, and long before a single ballot was even
counted. It is straight out of Donald Trump's playbook--the same
playbook that perpetuated the Big Lie and fueled the domestic terrorism
that the world witnessed on January 6.
It is no coincidence that the cynical claims of voter fraud are often
targeted at communities of color. In the face of these challenges, we
must overcome, together, again. We must renew our collective fight for
our democracy. It is up to us. The time is now to get the job done.
It is an honor to lead the Freedom to Vote Act alongside my
colleagues Senators Klobuchar, Merkley, Warnock, Manchin, King, Tester,
and Kaine.
The Freedom to Vote Act will make it easier for all eligible citizens
to register to vote and to cast their ballots. This bill will set a
baseline of protections for voters across the country, with
commonsense, proven reforms that have already been successfully
implemented in blue and red States across the country. I urge all of my
colleagues to join us and vote to strengthen our democracy.
As the first Latino to represent California in this body, in the U.S.
Senate, I am proud to be spending this Hispanic Heritage Month fighting
for voting rights because so many of our community's gains have been
achieved through political participation and representation. The fight
to expand voting rights is, indeed, part of our heritage. It is also a
tradition that unites Americans because we have come together,
generation after generation, to expand the promise of our democracy for
all. Yes, we are strongest when every eligible voter can make their
voice heard.
``Your vote is your voice.
(English translation of the statement made in Spanish is as follows:)
Your vote is your voice.''
I yield the floor.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues: Senator Padilla,
with your great experience as secretary of state and how that has
assisted us in coming together on this bill; Senator Warnock, with the
passion and firsthand experience you have in Georgia; Senator Kaine,
for an extraordinary speech, wherein we all had to step back and think
about our job description: to protect and defend the Constitution. It
is not just ours on this side of the aisle; it is also our colleagues'
on the other side of the aisle.
We have this special obligation to protect this democracy and to
cherish it and to pass it on to the next generation. The way you do
that fundamentally is by guaranteeing Americans the freedom to vote.
That is all this bill is about--putting in place minimum national
standards that we see in so many of our States but that, sadly, right
now, are threatened in a number of those States for no other reason
except--to quote Reverend Warnock--that some people don't want some
people to vote. Our democracy is too important to let that happen.
With that, we are going to end our segment here, and we will be back
to discuss this bill more next week.
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