[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 11 (Tuesday, January 18, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S232-S233]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VOTING RIGHTS
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, yesterday, we celebrated Martin Luther
King, Jr., Day and honored civil rights leaders who fought against
inequality and sacrificed so much to move our country closer towards
justice for all. But this year, on a day when we should be coming
together to commemorate these civil rights achievements and recommit to
the road ahead, we are instead fighting a battle we thought was won
decades ago.
In 1957, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his ``Give Us the
Ballot'' address, where he said:
The denial of this sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the
highest mandates of our democratic tradition.
But here we are in 2022 fighting back against hundreds of bills
introduced in States across the Nation clearly intended to make it so
much harder for certain people to vote.
Twenty-two States have already enacted 47 new laws that make it more
difficult to vote by mail, that make it harder to stay on voting lists,
that limit the availability of drop boxes for ballots, that limit the
number of polling locations, that impose stricter or newer voter ID
requirements, and the list goes on. But one of the most insidious is
Georgia's law which allows any person to challenge the rights of an
unlimited number of voters to cast their ballots.
If someone decides for whatever reason to challenge another person's
right to vote, the voter then has to show up to their election office
to defend themselves. Imagine being a single mom working two jobs and
unable to afford childcare, and now she has to defend her
constitutional right just because someone thought she shouldn't be
voting at all.
Volunteers are already being recruited to pose these challenges. This
isn't voter protection; this is vigilantism. These laws are clearly
intended to target communities of color and make it harder for them to
vote, period.
Our country's legacy of racial discrimination in voting is
undeniable, and it is undeniable that we are witnessing history repeat
itself.
In 1890, the House passed historic legislation that would have
increased voting protections, particularly for Black voters, but the
Senate failed to take up this legislation, failed to act at a critical
time when it had the chance, and the results were devastating for
decades to come. The Senate's failure to take up this legislation
allowed Jim Crow and the plummeting of voter
[[Page S233]]
turnout among Black voters to continue for more than half a century,
until the Senate passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 over 70 years later.
A recent Washington Post analysis said that this current wave of
voter suppression bills potentially amounts to ``the most sweeping
contraction of ballot access in the United States since the end of
Reconstruction.''
Today, these attacks on our freedom to vote are taking us back to the
time of Reconstruction.
We cannot wait another 70 years for this so-called deliberative body
to act, which is why we need to pass comprehensive voter protection
legislation. But not a single Republican supports the Freedom to Vote:
John Lewis Act. Many of my Republican colleagues have joined
Congressman John Lewis to commemorate the March from Selma to
Montgomery, but today they won't even allow the Senate to consider
legislation named in his honor and have called this bill radical. There
is nothing radical about protecting a person's freedom to vote. What is
radical is sending us back to the days of Reconstruction.
This legislation would restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act,
which Congress reauthorized with broad bipartisan support five times--
1970, 1975, 1982, 1992--and it passed 98 to 0 in 2006, which included
10 currently sitting Senate Republicans.
This bill would also expand opportunities to vote, prevent voter
suppression, and improve election security. We are talking about
provisions that would require States to offer early voting and no-
excuse vote-by-mail, make election day a public holiday, crack down on
voter intimidation, and require postelection audits. Again, I ask, how
is any of this radical? What is radical is justifying overt attacks on
our democracy by perpetuating the Big Lie of mass voter fraud.
For Republicans, this fight isn't about election security; it is
about securing their power, because Republicans have decided that
spreading misinformation and rigging elections by preventing people
from voting is the only way they will retain their power.
Republicans should come to the Senate floor and tell the American
people why they won't protect our freedom to vote. Instead, the
Republican leader came to the floor to attack Democrats for fighting to
change Senate rules to pass this critical legislation, calling it a
power grab.
The Republican leader said that Democrats want to ``permanently
damage this institution.'' He went on to say the filibuster is ``about
compromise and moderation''--this from the Republican leader who refers
to himself as the grim reaper as he prevents dozens of House-passed
bills from being considered on the Senate floor; the same person who
singlehandedly prevented President Obama from filling a vacancy on the
Supreme Court for over a year, denying the will of nearly 66 million
Americans who voted to give President Obama a second term in office;
the same person who pushed through President Trump's Supreme Court
nominee as over 159 million Americans were in the process of voting. So
much for compromise and moderation.
Let's not pretend this is about the sanctity of this institution. We
cannot sit back and let one political party continue to unravel the
threads of our democracy one voter suppression bill at a time. While
Republicans do nothing to protect our freedom to vote in the face of
mass voter suppression bills enacted across the country, we Democrats
cannot sit back and let 2020 be the last free and fair election in our
country.
If we don't protect the right to vote, we won't have a democracy. It
is that simple. That is the reality. Since the Republicans will not
lift a finger to protect voting rights, we have no option but to change
the Senate rules in order to pass the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis
Act. This is something that every single Democratic Senator needs to
get on board with.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. 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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