[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 164 (Wednesday, September 22, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6613-S6616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Voting Rights

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, in June, our Democratic colleagues voted 
on their first and initial efforts to nationalize our State-run and 
local-run election system. That bill--this legislation, this effort--
had been years in the

[[Page S6614]]

making. You know, in some ways, it is interesting to think about 
because back when our country was founded, there was a big debate on 
whether we should have a national government or whether we should have 
a Federal system. And, of course, we opted for a Federal system where 
the States retained their sovereignty within their authority, and all 
powers not delegated to the Federal Government were retained by the 
States and the people. That is the very definition of a Federal system.
  So our colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle have sort of 
renewed that debate again, trying to upend our Federal system of 
governance in favor of a national government, basically a command and 
control run out of Washington, DC.
  When it comes to the takeover of our elections or to try to 
nationalize our elections, the initial proposal surfaced as a messaging 
bill in 2019 but over the years has undergone a number of makeovers. 
Each time, our colleagues have tried to sell this radical change in the 
way that our elections are run by different appeals.
  They have talked about, well, this is important for election 
security. Remember the 2016 election, obviously--big concerns about 
Russian misinformation campaigns and cyber attacks, and election 
security was obviously at top of mind.
  Then it was sold as a matter of regaining the voters' confidence that 
their vote would actually count.
  Then it was sold as a way to remove the obstacles that prevented 
people from voting, which appears to be the current message.
  Well, in 2020, in my State alone, but not just in Texas but across 
the country, we saw a record voter turnout. In my State, we said 66 
percent of registered voters cast a ballot--11.3 million people.
  The last time I had been on the ballot, 6 years previously, we only 
had 4.8 million voters, but we went from 4.8 to 11.3 in just 6 years. 
Now, part of that is because my State has been growing. Between 2010 
and 2020, we have seen 4 million new Texans, either born or moved or 
made their way one way or another to our State.
  But the 2020 election saw the largest voter turnout in 120 years--120 
years. Well, clearly, if people are voting--including people of color, 
minorities--are voting at record levels, it is time to come up with a 
new sales pitch to try to sell this hijacking, really, of our State- 
and local-run elections.
  So a number of States, including my State, have recently passed 
legislation to address voter confidence, to make sure that elections 
are fair and that people have an opportunity to vote who are legally 
qualified to do so. The phrase many of them used in that process was, 
they tried to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. So that now 
has been the focus of our Democratic colleagues in trying to 
nationalize our State- and local-run elections, which, by the way, is 
ensconced within the framework of the Constitution itself.
  So our Democratic colleagues then attacked the State election laws 
and really just went over the top in terms of their description of what 
exactly was happening. Certainly it was not factual, but they said, in 
a number of cases, these changes in State election laws--and I am 
thinking of Georgia, Arizona, and Texas in particular--they said that 
they are the most sweeping attacks on the right to vote since the 
beginning of Jim Crow, and they said the only way to change that was to 
pass their election law.
  Our colleagues talked about the bill in terms of protecting the right 
to vote and strengthening our democracy. Who could be against that? But 
the reality of the situation is very different, and the far-reaching 
provisions of the Democratic election takeover bill look nothing like 
the safeguards of democracy; they look more like a partisan power play.
  In the end, the only thing bipartisan about the bill was the 
opposition. In both the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats 
voted against the initial legislation, but our Democratic colleagues 
still refuse to recognize the reality of the vote and throw in the 
towel.
  After the failed vote this summer, our colleagues on the Democratic 
side went back to the drawing board and came back with a new bill they 
call the Freedom to Vote Act. Well, if we needed any more proof that 
this is not a good-faith effort to strengthen our election but, rather, 
a partisan power play, the bill was introduced 1 week ago, and the 
Senate could end up voting on it as early as this week. That is hardly 
what I would call a deliberative process, one that even invites 
bipartisan debate and consideration.
  So we may end up being required to vote on the bill--that is 
certainly the prerogative of the majority leader--with no real 
committee hearings, no real testimony from experts, and no indication 
that this bill is really being taken seriously other than to check a 
box and to send a message.
  What has really been interesting is our colleagues on the left have 
said--they have tried to brand this as a compromise bill. I think that 
is primarily because of the objection of the Senator from West 
Virginia, Senator Manchin, who said he couldn't support the original 
bill. So they tried to come up with something that maybe looked more 
like a compromise but really isn't, and I will talk about that more in 
a second.
  But this bill was not the result of bipartisan deliberations or 
consultation or communication even. As the Republican leader has noted, 
this so-called compromise bill is a compromise between the left and the 
radical left, which is hardly a compromise at all. But that is 
apparently the way that Leader Schumer decides to run the Senate, after 
all, passing a $1.9 trillion spending bill right after Joe Biden became 
President, with no Republican support, under the auspices of being 
COVID relief when only 10 percent of it actually had anything to do 
with COVID.
  Well, the good news is we have done a few bipartisan things. We 
passed the Endless Frontier Act--our way of trying to address the 
challenge of China. We passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill. But now 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to do it alone 
again, and they are trying to pass a bill that could end up costing 
taxpayers as much as $5.5 trillion. A nominal figure is $3.5 trillion, 
but right now, they are experiencing a lot of differences of opinion 
within their own ranks as to what is acceptable and what is not, and 
they certainly aren't talking to us.
  But all the while, they have continued to work on a partisan effort 
to overrun our constitutional delegation, really, of the election 
system to State and local government. So no one should be fooled. This 
bill is not a compromise in any sense of the word. Just like its 
predecessor, this bill hijacks State constitutional power to make 
decisions on things like voter registration and early voting.
  Actually, this morning in the Constitution Subcommittee, the Senator 
from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal, was talking about the fact that 
his State, Connecticut, did not have early in-person voting, but they 
have now passed a bill that provides for a referendum in Connecticut. 
If the referendum passes, then the State legislature may actually 
provide for early voting in person.
  I would just tell you that the contrast between the rhetoric and the 
reality is pretty amazing because the Texas election law, passed by the 
State legislature just recently, provides for 17 days of early voting 
in person. In other words, there is a fulsome opportunity for anybody 
who is qualified to vote to cast their ballot in person or by mail if 
you qualify or on the day of the election. As you can see, with 66 
percent of the registered voters actually taking advantage of that 
generous opportunity to cast their ballot, they did in historic 
numbers.
  Well, there is a saying that ``if it is not broke, don't fix it,'' 
and there is nothing broke about our State- and local-run election 
systems. Certainly the guardrails are in place. If, for example, 
someone were to deny a minority voter the opportunity to cast a ballot 
or to make sure their ballot counted just like anybody else's, there is 
section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In fact, the Biden Department of 
Justice has filed such a lawsuit against Georgia based on the changes 
in their voting laws. So there is plenty of opportunity to raise these 
issues in court should the Federal Government and should the Biden 
administration wish to challenge them, but the truth is, they are going 
to lose because what they have

[[Page S6615]]

tried to do is to change through litigation what they cannot do 
constitutionally through legislation.
  Well, this so-called compromise bill, which is no compromise at all, 
contains invasive disclosure requirements that would attack the privacy 
of voters and chill free speech. It places handcuffs on States when it 
comes to drawing new legislative lines in redistributing, and it 
threatens action from the Attorney General if those standards aren't 
met. It makes it too difficult to root out fraud and protect the 
integrity of the vote by prohibiting voter ID for mail-in ballots and 
mandating drop boxes for ballots to be dropped by partisan advocates.
  You know, people act like there is no such thing as voter fraud, but 
actually we have a famous case in Texas called Box 13 in Duval County, 
TX, where Coke Stevenson and LBJ--Lyndon Baines Johnson--were running 
for the Senate.
  You know what they found is, because of the manipulation of the voter 
rolls by the county judge in Duval County, literally, they had people 
who were already buried in the cemetery vote in favor of Lyndon Baines 
Johnson in alphabetical order once they figured out how many votes they 
needed to cast.
  That is just one famous example of voter fraud. Our Democratic 
colleagues act like it doesn't exist.
  But what we did here in the Judiciary Committee a few months ago was 
the secretary of state for New Hampshire--he is a Democrat, and they 
don't have any early voting. It was interesting to hear him say that he 
thinks the single most important factor when it comes to people casting 
their ballot is people's confidence in the system that their ballot 
will actually be counted the way they voted. So all of these different 
times and conditions under which people can cast their ballot, he says, 
really don't have nearly as big an impact as just the confidence they 
have that their vote will be counted as they cast it.
  And why our Democratic colleagues are opposed to voter ID is beyond 
me. We know Jimmy Carter and James Baker III--of course, Jimmy Carter, 
a former Democratic President; and James Baker III, a former prominent 
Secretary of State and Treasury Secretary. They had a commission to 
look at things like voter ID, and they actually recommended that voter 
ID would be one way to instill public confidence in the integrity of 
the vote.
  You have to show your ID when you go through the Transportation 
Security Administration--TSA--to get on an airplane. You have to show 
an ID if you are going to buy a pack of cigarettes at a convenience 
store or six-pack of beer. I mean, we are accustomed to people being 
required to identify who they are. If you want to get into a Federal 
building, you have to show an ID.
  So the idea that we should prohibit voter ID, to me, is ridiculous, 
and that is one of the provisions in the Democrat substitute bill which 
is before us. It would prohibit the use of voter ID through mail-in 
ballots.
  But that is just the beginning. One of the most outlandish--or I 
should say on top of what I have already talked about--provisions of 
this bill is the use of taxpayer funds for campaigns. Well, a lot of 
companies have matching programs for charitable giving. That is a 
positive, good thing. If an employee donates to a charity of their 
choice, many times their company will match that donation dollar for 
dollar. That is a positive thing.
  But, here, what happens is, instead of a charity getting the money, 
it is a political candidate. In other words, our Democratic colleagues 
are recommending that for every dollar that is donated to a political 
candidate, the taxpayer kick in an extra 6 bucks.
  Well, I know some of these campaigns that we have already run in 
recently get to be pretty expensive campaigns. But can you imagine that 
the taxpayers be asked to pony up $6 for every $1 that is contributed 
to the campaign? And is it really fair to ask taxpayers to subsidize 
the election of somebody they may disagree with?
  It makes no sense to me. Well, this means that if someone donates 
$200 to the preferred congressional candidate, the Federal Government 
could match with $1,200. And it is not the Federal Government; it is 
the taxpayer, by the way.
  Then there are the campaign vouchers, which will provide eligible 
voters with a $25 voucher to donate to the campaign of their choosing. 
I am not making this up. This is what is in the legislation that, 
unfortunately, I don't think many people have read or understand.
  It is easy to imagine a better use of taxpayer funding, whether 
infrastructure, help for people who still are in need as a result of 
the COVID pandemic. It could go to crime victims or support a response 
to a humanitarian crisis at the border, like we are seeing in Del Rio, 
TX. But, no, our Democratic colleagues want to put it into the 
political campaigns of the candidates of their choice.
  Well, in addition to the rotten provisions that are maintained from 
the previous bill, there is even more. The bill places immense power in 
the office of General Counsel of the Federal Election Commission. He is 
an unelected official. It lowers the legal standard to overturn voting 
laws. And it makes election day a Federal holiday, even though the bill 
mandates 15 days of early voting, which, again, by the way, is less 
than the State legislature has provided for in Texas. We have 17 days 
of early voting.
  Well, the truth is this is a so-called solution in search of a 
problem. The truth is there is no voter suppression epidemic.
  During the Obama administration, their Justice Department brought 
four lawsuits--four lawsuits--under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. 
If you thought there was an epidemic of voter suppression, don't you 
think the Obama administration would have been more active and more 
vigilant?
  Again, there is the fact that the 2020 elections saw the highest 
turnout in 120 years for all racial and ethnic groups. Over the last 4 
years, States across the country undertook efforts to keep their 
elections free from fraud and foreign interference.
  By the way, one of the conclusions following the 2016 election by the 
intelligence community was that the dispersed and diffused nature of 
our elections actually made it harder for Russia to impact the outcome 
because they would have had to do so in all 50 States.
  If this was all run out of Washington, DC, and one black box 
appeared, it would probably be easier for them to concentrate their 
efforts on one location rather than 50 locations and increase the 
likelihood of their ability to influence the outcome.
  Well, we have kicked in--here in Congress--hundreds of millions of 
dollars to help the States keep their elections free from fraud and 
foreign interference.
  But under the Constitution, as currently written, each State has a 
constitutional authority to govern how their elections are run, and I 
think it is a good thing--subject to section 2 of the Voting Rights Act 
if someone commits a foul.
  In my State, 29 million people are spread out across major cities and 
small towns alike. And what works well in our State may not make as 
much sense in a small, densely populated State like New Jersey, or 
large, sparsely populated State like Alaska.
  That is why it is important that the States be the laboratories of 
democracy and try to be responsive to the needs of the people in their 
particular State, because we are not all the same. I believe the 
leaders in each State know best the unique circumstances of their 
constituents, and they are best suited to craft voting laws that 
prioritize both access and security.
  A Federal Government hijacking of our State- and local-run election 
laws will not improve voter confidence in our elections. In fact, it 
will stir the very fears that Democrats claim they are trying to 
alleviate. But this isn't really new. It is just a repackaged and new 
effort to do the same thing, which is to nationalize our elections and 
run all of them out of Washington, DC, and to discourage commonsense 
measures, like voter ID, that help bolster public confidence in our 
elections and diminish the opportunity for people to cheat.
  Well, no matter how many times we see this rebranded and new version 
of this Federal takeover of elections, I will continue to fight any 
effort to take the constitutional authority given to my State to run 
our own elections. I certainly am not going to turn

[[Page S6616]]

it over to the National Democratic Party.
  The Senate will never green light politically motivated attempts to 
take over America's elections, and that is good thing. And we are not 
going to go down this road on this new, rehashed, modified, substitute 
effort to nationalize our Federal elections.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.