[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 2 (Tuesday, January 4, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6-S7]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Voting Rights

  Mr. President, now, about January 6 and defending democracy, at the 
same time the Senate will also proceed on another urgent and 
fundamental matter: protecting our democracy and strengthening the 
right to vote in free and fair elections.
  Later today, I will meet with a number of my colleagues to continue 
our conversation on voting rights, and I will meet with our entire 
caucus for the first time this year to talk about how we are going to 
move forward. There has been constant discussion among Members over the 
break--constant. I must have made a minimum of 10 phone calls every 
day, with maybe the exception of Christmas, in respect for my 
colleagues. But we have to keep moving forward.
  And, a few days from now, our country will observe a dark and 
troubling milestone: the 1-year anniversary of January 6, the day that 
thousands of rioters, urged on by the vicious lies of the disgraced 
former President, waged a violent assault upon the U.S. Capitol in 
order to prevent a peaceful transfer of power.
  This was no just peaceful demonstration; this was aimed at undoing 
our democracy. Thank God they failed.
  As I said hours after the attack, January 6, 2021, will be forever 
remembered as a day of enduring infamy, a permanent blemish in the 
story of American democracy, and the final, bitter act of the worst 
President--the worst President--in modern times.
  Of course, over the course of this week, we will pay tribute to the 
heroes who stepped up that fateful day: our Capitol Police, the DC 
Metro Police, our National Guard who kept watch for months, and 
everyone who acted quickly that day to save the lives and save our 
democracy. But this week--this week--we must also acknowledge that the 
attack on January 6 was not a one-off. It did not materialize out of 
the blue. On the contrary, January 6 was a symptom of a much broader 
illness that has now infected the modern Republican Party: an effort to 
delegitimize our elections, rooted in Donald Trump's Big Lie.
  While January 6 was only 1 day, the Big Lie lives on and has only 
grown stronger. The Big Lie lives on in Republican-dominated State 
legislatures, where at least 19 States have passed 33 new laws that 
will potentially make it harder--harder--for millions to vote in our 
elections. They say they want to prevent fraud, and they have no 
evidence of fraud. We all know what they are up to: vitiating, 
poisoning our elections, this sacred part of American democracy.
  And the violence and threats of violence continue. The Big Lie lives 
on through the troubling wave of violent threats that election workers 
across the country have endured over the course of the last year, all 
simply for the audacity of having done their job to count the votes 
fairly and without bias.
  If left alone--if left alone--the Big Lie threatens the very future 
of our Republic. If people don't believe in the sanctity of our 
elections, what is going to happen to this Republic? The sanctity of 
elections, the fairness of elections, the fact that after election day 
we abide by the results has been the cornerstone of our entire 
democracy. It is what democracy is all about. It is what the Founding 
Fathers constructed. Are we going to let that go by the wayside? Are we 
going to let it be poisoned and vitiated, with huge consequences to the 
effect of this Nation, probably greater than any we have seen since the 
Civil War?
  So, as we remember January 6 this week and as we confront State-level 
voter suppression, we must be clear that they are not isolated 
developments; they are all directly linked to the same anti-democratic 
poison of the Big Lie.
  Let me say that one more time. The insurrection of January 6, the 
flurry of new voter restriction laws, and the State-level efforts to 
subvert democracy are not isolated developments but manifestations of 
the same anti-democratic poison of Donald Trump's Big Lie, and they all 
demand the same solution: The Senate must advance legislation to 
protect our democracy and safeguard the right to vote.
  Over the coming weeks, the Senate will thus consider legislation we 
can pass to achieve this goal. Democrats for months have tried to bring 
Republicans to the table, but every single time, Republicans use the 
rules of the Senate to prevent even a debate.
  Voting rights in the past was a bipartisan issue. How quickly they 
forget. Republican Presidents--Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George 
W. Bush--supported voting rights.
  When voting rights extensions came up in this body in the past, they 
passed by large majorities--bipartisan. The resistance we see from 
modern-day Republicans is a beast of an entirely different nature. 
Maybe some of them were scared of Trump. But too many of them see this 
as a way to win advantage, to get their hard-right views enacted, even 
though the public doesn't support them, by jaundicing our election 
process and putting barriers in the way of particular people--not all 
people--of voting: people of color, poor people, people who live in big 
cities, young people, handicapped people, elderly people.
  As I said in my ``Dear Colleague'' earlier this week, if Republicans 
continue to hijack the rules of the Chamber to prevent action on 
something as critical as protecting our democracy, then the Senate will 
debate and consider changes to the rules on or before January 17, 
Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

[[Page S7]]

  Over the course of history, the Senate has debated voting rights many 
times and done what was necessary to take action, but rarely did our 
predecessors face the sort of malice that now confronts our democracy 
from within.
  One final point. I mean, the arguments from the other side--they are 
saying: Federalize the elections. That is in the Constitution, that 
Federal elections can be determined by Federal legislation. That is 
what some of our great post-Civil War amendments were all about. That 
is what the history of voting rights legislation has been about. When 
State legislatures, for reasons often bigoted and racist, said people 
couldn't vote for one reason or another or stopped them from voting, 
the Congress stepped in. That is nothing new. It is unbelievable the 
arguments they come up with--just totally false. Totally false.
  So as we hold this debate, I ask my colleagues to consider this 
question: If the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, 
then how can we Democrats permit a situation in which Republicans can 
pass voter suppression laws at the State level with only a simple 
majority vote but not allow the U.S. Senate to do the same? And I ask 
that of my Democratic colleagues--my Democratic colleagues.
  This asymmetry cannot hold. If Senate Republicans continue to abuse 
the filibuster to prevent this body from acting, then the Senate must 
adapt. The Senate always has.
  Robert C. Byrd, one of this Chamber's great traditionalists, 
acknowledged that Senate rules that seemed appropriate in the past 
``must be changed to reflect changed circumstances.'' Boy oh boy, do we 
have changed circumstances now with this abandonment of voting rights 
by the Republican Party and a willingness to let voters from one end of 
the country to the other be suppressed. As times change and 
circumstances evolve, the Senate must follow the suit of changed 
circumstances when necessary. So we are going to work towards that goal 
in the coming weeks.

  To downplay the threat against our democracy is dangerous--dangerous. 
We have seen this in history forever. When people try to subvert 
democracy, when they use threats of violence to do so, if good people 
don't stand up, the democracy can wither. We cannot let that happen to 
our wonderful country.
  There is no better way to heal the damage of January 6 than to act so 
that our constitutional order is preserved for the future. If we do not 
act to protect our elections, the horrors of January 6 will risk 
becoming not the exception but the norm. The stakes could not be 
higher. So we are going to move forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority whip.