[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 193 (Wednesday, November 3, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S7690]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Voting Laws

  Mr. President, now on one final matter, practically every single 
week, Senate Democrats make another attempt at grabbing new power over 
America's elections.
  Remember, a giant partisan power grab over voting procedures in every 
county and State was Democrats' ceremonial first priority of this whole 
Congress. They revealed their mission from the very start. That first 
proposal would have sent Federal funds to political campaigns; 
overridden commonsense State rules, like voter ID; and even changed the 
Federal Election Commission itself from a neutral referee into a 
partisan body.

  It was so bad--so bad--that even the New York Times called it a 
flawed bill that was ``designed to fail.'' That is, of course, exactly 
what happened here in the Senate, but the Democrats tipped their hand 
right from the start. They gave away the entire game.
  So every time that Washington Democrats make a few changes around the 
margins and come back for more bites at the same apple, we know exactly 
what they are trying to do.
  Many of the go-nowhere bills that the Democratic leader has used for 
political theater had Congress essentially appointing itself--itself--
the Board of Elections on steroids for every county and State in 
America. Congress was going to micromanage elections to a degree with 
no precedent.
  This new version, today's episode in this ongoing series, is only 
slightly different. Rather than congressional Democrats trying to grab 
all the power for themselves, they are instead trying to pull off the 
power grab on behalf of the Democratic Attorney General. Instead of 
Washington Democrats and the legislative branch seizing power over 
elections in the country, it will be Washington Democrats and the 
executive branch doing the same thing--a slightly different twist on 
the same concept, but for the same partisan reasons, with the same 
basic problems.
  In order to let Attorney General Garland dictate voting procedures, 
Democrats want to overturn Supreme Court precedent. Our colleagues' 
flimsy arguments keep losing in court, so they are now trying to 
overturn the courts. When States cracked down on the absurd practice of 
ballot harvesting, Democrats ran to the courts, claiming 
discrimination, and lost.
  When liberals wanted to kill voter ID laws--which are popular with 
majorities of Black Americans and Hispanic Americans, by the way--they 
ran to the courts.
  What happened?
  They lost.
  When the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that one part--just one part--of 
the 40-year-old Voting Rights Act needed updating, the radical left 
said the sky was falling and voter turnout would collapse.
  Well, of course, the opposite happened. Turnout in 2020 was the 
highest since 1900. In one recent poll--listen to this--94 percent of 
voters say voting is easy. Ninety-four percent of voters say voting is 
easy, and, of course, it is.
  Moreover, the Voting Rights Act is still in effect. The courts 
haven't struck down that law. It is simply false to suggest otherwise. 
The Supreme Court simply ruled that there was no evidence--no 
evidence--supporting the continuation of 40-year-old practices that 
were designed in the mid-1960s to address the specific challenges back 
then.
  There is nothing--nothing--to suggest a sprawling Federal takeover is 
necessary. Nationalizing our elections is just a multidecade Democratic 
Party goal in constant search of a justification. Their rationales 
change constantly, but the end goal never does.
  Americans don't need Attorney General Garland ruling over their 
States' and their counties' elections any more than they need 
congressional Democrats doing it themselves. So the Senate will reject 
this go-nowhere bill today, like we have rejected every other piece of 
fruit from the same poisonous tree.
  This body has real business we should be tackling. The Defense 
authorization bill is months behind schedule. The majority has been 
derelict in allowing bipartisan progress on appropriations. These are 
things we need to be doing.
  Every designed-to-fail political showboat comes at the expense of the 
things that we ought to be working on.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lujan). The Republican whip.