[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 184 (Wednesday, October 20, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7095-S7096]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             VOTING RIGHTS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on one final matter, later today, 
the Democratic leader will have the Senate vote on the latest iteration 
of his party's election takeover scheme.
  Frankly, I have just about lost count of how many times our 
Democratic colleagues have tried to truss up the same takeover with new 
trappings. For multiple years running, Washington Democrats have 
offered a rotating merry-go-round of rationale to explain why they need 
to federalize voting laws and take over all of America's elections 
themselves, but every time they try this shtick in the Senate, it falls 
flat. Today will be no exception.
  This latest umpteenth iteration is only a compromise in the sense 
that the left and the far left argued among themselves about exactly 
how much power to grab and in which areas. This latest bill still 
subjects popular, commonsense election integrity protections like voter 
ID to the whims of

[[Page S7096]]

Federal bureaucrats. It still sends government money to political 
campaigns--government money, taxpayers' money, to political campaigns, 
for goodness' sake. It still puts Washington in the middle of the 
States' redistricting decisions and on and on. The same rotten core is 
all still there.
  The Senate knows how to make a law in a productive, bipartisan way. 
We have done it this year on multiple subjects. We have done it on 
election issues themselves in recent memory--the Help America Vote Act 
20 years ago that Chris Dodd and I put together. We did that when there 
was an actual problem that needed solving and an actual bipartisan 
process. But as long as Senate Democrats remain fixated on their 
radical agenda, this body will continue to do the job the Framers 
assigned it and stop terrible ideas in their tracks.

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