[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 8 (Wednesday, January 12, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S185-S187]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Voting Rights

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this week, the Democrats are forcing yet 
another show vote on the so-called voting rights legislation. They 
claim the right to vote is under attack by the States, and there is 
nothing that could be further from the truth.
  Ahead of the 2020 elections, everyone from Vice President Kamala 
Harris to Eric Holder to Stacey Abrams claimed that they were 
experiencing a wave of voter suppression. Now, that is very 
significant--a wave of voter suppression, as if they have to do 
something to change our system.

[[Page S186]]

  And the facts are so clear on that. You know, people lie around here, 
but the facts don't lie. The Census Bureau reported that the turnout in 
last year's election was 66.8 percent. Now, that was the highest voter 
turnout of the 21st century, and that turnout was higher across all 
demographics, as well as including minorities.
  More than 90 percent of Americans think it is easy to vote. More than 
a third of them think the rules should be more stringent than they are 
today, and there is a good argument for that. But that argument is 
prevailing right now.
  So once you see that the Democrats' Big Lie of rampant voter 
suppression is clearly false, why are they pushing this election 
takeover bill? They want to nationalize elections, putting the Federal 
Government in charge of something that the Constitution clearly says 
belongs to the State.
  And just a few examples of what the bill would do: It would line the 
pockets of candidates with taxpayer dollars in order to run for office. 
It would restrict commonsense voter ID, supported by over 75 percent of 
the Americans, and mandate mail-in ballots and allow ballot 
trafficking--trafficking, that is when the unsupervised political 
operatives collect and submit absentee ballots--and it would make 
election day a Federal holiday, costing somewhere close to $1 billion 
each time that it would be used.
  Now, you don't have to take my word for it on how radical this is. 
Oklahoma's election board secretary--keep in mind, as in most States, 
it is nonpolitical, nonpartisan in any way, and the guy's name is Paul 
Ziriax. He has called Schumer's legislation a ``recipe for chaos.''
  Democrats can feel the American people turning against their agenda. 
And so they are desperate to rig elections in their favor, and they 
will do so by whatever means necessary--even killing rules that make 
the Senate the Senate.
  This would poison bipartisan compromise in the Senate forever. My 
Democratic colleagues want you to forget that they were for the 
filibuster before they were against it. Just 5 years ago, 33 Senate 
Democrats, including then-Senator Harris, penned a letter demanding 
that we defend and retain it forever. So they were demanding that we 
retain the filibuster. But now they changed their mind, which means 
that they either have amnesia or that they see an opportunity to force 
their radical agenda on the American families.
  If Democrats get their way on the filibuster, they won't stop taking 
over our elections. They will also pass their Green New Deal, their 
abortion on demand, amnesty, and pack the Supreme Court with activists 
to uphold their unconstitutional agenda.
  I want to close by sharing a comment on the filibuster. The quote is 
this:

       Getting rid of the filibuster has long-term consequences. 
     If there's one thing that I have learned in my years here, 
     once you change the rules and surrender the Senate's 
     institutional power, you never get it back.

  Now, I didn't say that. That was said by President Joe Biden. He said 
it just in those words, and that might be the first time that we agree 
on something.
  Likewise, Senator Schumer also said that getting rid of the 
legislative filibuster would be ``doomsday for democracy.'' And I 
happen to agree with him on that, too.
  I have served the people of Oklahoma in the Senate longer than anyone 
in history, and I feel strongly that the one thing that has protected 
our democratic Republic and ensured bipartisanship more than any other 
single thing is the Senate's protection of the voice of the minority.
  That is what we are famous for. There is no one else that has that as 
a function to do it, and yet I am seeing some of the things that are 
going on right now.
  President Biden said--keep this in mind--back in 2005: We have got to 
keep the filibuster.
  Then in 2021, just the other day, he said: We have got to kill the 
filibuster.
  He said that yesterday.
  Senator Schumer, back in 2005, said killing the filibuster will be 
``doomsday for democracy,'' and now Schumer wants to kill the 
filibuster.
  Senator Coons said, back in 2018: ``I am committed to never voting to 
change the legislative filibuster.'' And now he is supporting killing 
the filibuster.
  Senator Klobuchar, back in 2017, said: ``Let's keep that 60-vote 
threshold in place,'' which is the filibuster.
  And now she said, just a few days ago: ``I would personally get rid 
of the filibuster.''
  So here is what we are faced with: We know what is right, and we know 
what is wrong. It is very clear. Yet they are desperately trying to 
take a position that they have had for a long period of time. So we 
will continue to protect it. Both the President and Senator Schumer are 
trying to kill the filibuster, and we are not going to let that happen.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Ms. LUMMIS. Mr. President, it is always an honor to address the 
people of the United States from the floor of the U.S. Senate, and 
tonight is no exception.
  I want to thank my colleague from Oklahoma for his wonderful remarks.
  In order to form a more perfect Union, our Founding Fathers gave us a 
government that filters the will of the majority through a deliberative 
process of amendment and debate. For centuries, this has meant that 
legislative change, while slower in the United States than in some 
other countries, is moderated through healthy compromises and informed 
by a greater number of voices. This, in turn, has tended to give us 
legislation that benefits more Americans.
  In recent decades, one of the most important factors in this process 
has been the Senate filibuster. It is one of the defining 
characteristics that sets the Senate apart from the House, and I served 
in the House. I remember how frustrating it was to send bill after bill 
to the Senate only to watch those bills die.
  But because the House is set up on a more partisan basis, some of the 
bills we sent over here were pretty partisan. So the Senate has a 
chance to either look at those and reject them as purely partisan or, 
more frequently, take up bills that have been crafted on a bipartisan 
basis in this body, and I respect that.
  The House is about simple majority rule, but the Senate, thanks in 
part to the filibuster, is defined by the rights of the minority party. 
Simply put, it gives the party not in power a voice to speak for 
forgotten Americans and for small States like Wyoming.
  I am continually amazed at the whiplash-inducing about-face that 
Senate Democrats are doing on this issue. It was mentioned earlier by 
the previous speaker. Senate Democrats may be trying to end the 
filibuster today, but until recently, they sang a very different tune. 
As was pointed out, Majority Leader Schumer, in 2005, said that 
abolishing the filibuster would be doomsday for democracy--doomsday. 
Majority Whip Durbin said in 2018 that ending the filibuster would be 
the end of the Senate as was originally devised and created going back 
to our Founding Fathers. Vice President Harris signed a letter in 2017, 
with 31 Democratic Senators, urging the protection of the filibuster. 
President Biden was also a big supporter of the filibuster, calling it 
a Senator's right to require 60 votes for legislation and claiming that 
efforts to undermine the filibuster are a ``power grab'' by the 
majority party.
  Well, today President Biden and Senate Democrats are trying to do 
just that, grab power. They are trying to overhaul our voting system by 
nuking the filibuster and seizing unchecked power.
  Some of their more levelheaded and forward-thinking colleagues really 
are hesitant to do that. To their great credit and to the benefit of 
the institution of the Senate, my colleagues Kyrsten Sinema and Joe 
Manchin recognize that what goes around comes around. Senator Manchin 
criticized the idea of a filibuster carve-out for election takeover 
legislation saying that ``anytime there's a carve-out, you eat the 
whole turkey.'' There is nothing left.
  Senator Sinema wrote in the Washington Post that Democrats had more 
to lose than gain by changing filibuster rules, noting that the best 
way to achieve durable lasting results is through bipartisan 
cooperation.
  You know, I agree. We saw earlier this year, the infrastructure bill 
was the product of bipartisan discussion,

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and it produced legislation that had an overwhelming majority of the 
votes in the Senate. Now, I was not a ``yes'' vote on that bill. I was 
a ``no'' vote on that bill. I felt it spent too much money, but I will 
say this. It was a fine work product that was developed by people of 
good will in both parties. They accepted ideas that I had and that 
others of us had who eventually voted against the bill, and they worked 
tirelessly for months. They would not give up because they recognized 
that when you can get a significant majority in this Senate to support 
something on a bipartisan basis, you have a better product for the 
Nation.

  And I will say, I am proud of their work. I compliment them as 
frequently as I can for that work product, even though I didn't vote 
for it. It was an example of true bipartisanship, a true bipartisan 
compromise.
  That is another reason that I have worked with my friend from Arizona 
Senator Sinema and with my friend from Oregon Ron Wyden on financial 
innovation. I had never met Ron Wyden until that bill. That 
infrastructure bill came to the floor, and it had an amendment on the 
definition of broker that would apply in financial innovation 
instances. It did not adequately represent what really happens in the 
world of digital assets.
  So Senator Wyden and I met here on the floor. We became friends and 
started working on financial innovation issues, digital assets. And 
even though we were unsuccessful in changing the definition of 
``broker'' in that bill, it forged a working friendship that I am 
confident will last for as long as I am here and as long as he is here 
together.
  That is one of the reasons that I have come to believe so strongly in 
the filibuster. I saw it work in that specific piece of legislation, 
even in my first year in the U.S. Senate. It is why I have worked with 
Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island on a foreign agent registration 
reform. It is why I have worked with other Members of the other party 
on issues where we see more common ground than we see differences.
  If you want lasting change, it requires broad bipartisan support. 
Otherwise, the next administration will work to overturn your actions.
  The last time Democrats changed the filibuster, it ultimately led to 
three Supreme Court Justices picked by President Trump. If Democrats 
thought that was bad, they should think carefully before changing the 
filibuster for other legislation. We should all think long and hard, as 
we prepare to vote, over this radical proposal.
  I implore my Democratic colleagues, consider when the Senate was in 
Republican hands and when President Trump wanted Republicans to end the 
filibuster. Republicans rejected the Republican President's request to 
end the filibuster, and they did it out of respect for this 
institution. I am sure it was frustrating for the previous President. 
In some ways, it was frustrating for people like me.
  I was not in Washington during the 4 years of the Trump Presidency. I 
was here during the 8 years of the Obama Presidency, serving in the 
House. I was not here during the Trump Presidency. I was back in 
Wyoming. In that time, you know, we were characterized as being a big 
red State, where a bunch of people in a ``basket of deplorables''--I 
was in there with them--were living and clinging to their guns and 
their Bibles and we were treated like outcasts in our own country and 
it felt antagonistic. It was part of what creates this great divide 
that this country is in right now. That is how we felt about ourselves.
  I have to tell you, that is how we felt when President Biden went to 
Georgia and gave a speech and compared anyone who didn't support 
election reform to people like George Wallace. He compared people in my 
State and me, quite frankly, to a bunch of racists. That rhetoric is so 
damaging to trying to heal this country.
  We all know our Nation is divided right now. Yesterday didn't help. 
If we want a more perfect Union than we have today, we need more 
compromise, not less. That is why we have institutional norms like the 
filibuster. When one party starts tearing up the norms, they might gain 
in the short term, but they do irreversible, lasting damage not only to 
our institutions but to our ``e pluribus unum,'' ``out of many, one.'' 
If we want to be one, we should keep the filibuster in place.
  As those entrusted with the upkeep of our Constitution for future 
generations, we need to take a longer term view of what will be best 
for the country, not just our short-term political aspirations. Our 
Founders understood that the ends do not always justify the means. That 
is why we have the separation of powers--two Chambers of Congress and a 
Bill of Rights that protects the individuals, that protects freedom. 
Sometimes you have to choose the harder right over the easier wrong. 
Compromise is hard. I will tell you, I am not all that good at it. I am 
trying to learn from the people in this Senate Chamber who are so 
successful at it.
  You know, the American people have placed a great deal of faith in 
each one of us to get this done. I have faith in us as well.
  I will admit that I really disliked my first year in this U.S. 
Senate. It was a huge disappointment to me. It was ugly. It was nasty. 
It seemed un-American.
  But I still have faith in us. We need to protect our institutions. 
One of those institutions is the filibuster. I think it will allow us 
to continue to be a nation that is out of many and yet is still one. 
God willing, that will be the case.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kelly). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. OSSOFF. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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