[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 11 (Tuesday, January 18, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S243-S245]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               H.R. 5746

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this past weekend--and yesterday, in 
particular--we celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is likely, if 
you attended any event in that celebration, that you heard at least 
part of his ``I Have a Dream'' speech. Many of us in the Chamber 
happily quoted it because of our respect for him and the eloquence of 
his language in that moment.
  We like to remember the hopeful second half of that speech, as well, 
because Dr. King imagined a future in which Black children and White 
children play together, and all people are judged, as he so famously 
said, ``not by the color of our skin but by the content of our 
character.''
  However, many of us forget--or worse, ignore--the first half of that 
speech, in which Dr. King noted the painful irony that 100 years after 
the Emancipation Proclamation--the ``promissory note'' of our 
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence was for most Black 
Americans simply ``a bad check which has come back marked `insufficient 
funds.' ''
  Many Democratic Senators and Republican Senators helped to change 
that shameful fact. It was here on the floor of this Chamber, in 1965, 
that the U.S. Senate voted 77 to 19 to pass the Voting Rights Act, 
outlawing State practices that denied millions of Americans, 
particularly Black Americans, the right to vote. It is worth noting 
that it was a strong bipartisan vote and that, percentagewise, a 
greater percentage of the Republican Caucus voted in support of it, 
compared to Democrats. The White Democrats from the South were 
notorious at that time for opposing it and opposing the civil rights 
movement.
  Well, over the next nearly 50 years, the Voting Rights Act was 
reauthorized five times, and that bipartisanship continued during the 
entire period. Each new version of the Voting Rights Act renewed the 
promise and the protections of that law, and each reauthorization was 
signed into law by a Republican President.
  Sadly, in more recent years, things have changed in an awful way. We 
have witnessed a sustained effort to chip away the protections 
guaranteed to every American under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
  I grew up in East St. Louis, IL, and a trip to St. Louis was a big 
deal. I can remember my mother, who was an immigrant to this country, 
had only an eighth grade education, though she had self-taught herself 
into a much higher level of learning, but I can remember my mother 
always pointing out the St. Louis courthouse to me. If you are familiar 
with the terrain, the arch wasn't there when I was growing up. But 
where that arch is today, just behind it, is this famous St. Louis 
courthouse. We would be driving over the Eads Bridge, and she would say 
to me: Now, do you see that St. Louis courthouse up there? That big 
white building, do you see it? And do you see all those steps that you 
can see from here?
  Yes.
  They used to sell slaves on those steps.
  I found it incredible that my mom would say that. She was not a 
historian or, as I had mentioned, formally educated, but she knew that, 
and she knew that was the significance of that building. It was also 
the courthouse where the Dred Scott decision was argued.
  I say that because the Dred Scott decision, that infamous decision 
handed down in 1857, may have been the tipping point when it came to 
our Civil War. A decision by that court, now viewed as nothing short of 
outrageous, basically ruled that enslaved people, regardless of where 
they lived in the United States, could never be treated as American 
citizens and had no right to sue in the Federal courts of America.
  Despite State decisions to have free States and enslaved States, 
despite the Missouri Compromise, the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott 
decision basically came down clearly on the side of

[[Page S244]]

enslavement and said, for example, that the Missouri court doctrine of 
``once free, always free'' did not help Harriet and Dred Scott, who 
lived in free States part of their lives.
  That decision by the Supreme Court was a seminal decision in the 
history of our country. It is often noted the role that it played and 
the events that transpired afterward.
  I think of that decision when I think of what has happened in recent 
years in the Supreme Court. Nine years ago, in 2013, the Supreme Court 
issued its decision in Shelby County v. Holder. That Supreme Court 
decision essentially nullified a key provision of the Voting Rights 
Act: section 5. Prior to the Court's ruling in Shelby County, section 5 
required localities disenfranchising people based on race through poll 
taxes or literacy tests to seek Federal approval to any changes in 
their voting rules. That requirement is known as preclearance, and it 
could have--I believe it would have--prevented many of the restrictive 
voting laws in Georgia and Texas.

  The Supreme Court weakened another key section of the Voting Rights 
Act with its decision in Brnovich v. DNC. With these distorted 
rulings--distorted rulings--in fact, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan 
wrote, ``In the last decade, this Court has treated no statute worse 
than the Voting Rights Act of 1965.''
  The Presiding Officer knows what has happened across the United 
States in 19 different States. I think, because of decisions like 
Shelby and Brnovich, these States have been emboldened. They don't 
believe that they are going to be held accountable for decisions they 
are making that restrict the right to vote the way they would have been 
before those decisions. And those who come to the defense of those 
States and their practices come to the floor of the Senate and, 
predictably, argue States' rights, States' rights.
  I heard over the weekend on some of the talk shows--I don't know if 
there is a copy of it here. Oh, there is. I was hoping there would be a 
copy of the Constitution in this desk, and there is. But article I, 
section 4 of our Constitution is explicit, for those who question 
whether or not it is the exclusive province of the States to establish 
standards for elections. I am going to read it.

       Section 4. ``The Times, Places and Manner of holding 
     Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be 
     prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the 
     Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such 
     Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.''

  Of course, then the amendments following the Civil War--during and 
following the Civil War--went even further in terms of voting and the 
issue of race.
  It is very clear to me--and you only have to read those simple words, 
straightforward and direct in the Constitution, to realize that 
establishing standards for elections is not exclusively within the 
province of the State. In fact, just the opposite is true. When it 
comes to Federal elections for Representatives and Senators, authority 
is given to us--to us--this Senate and the House of Representatives. 
And, of course, through the signature of the President, the law is 
created that can establish standards and regulations.
  Yet Members on the other side, Members on the side of President 
Lincoln's political party, the Republican Party, now come to us at this 
moment in history and argue nullification and States' rights. What a 
cruel twist of fate that Mr. Lincoln's party, which took such pride in 
the progress that was made after the deadly Civil War in establishing 
civil rights, is now defending the activities of 19 different States 
that restrict voting rights.
  Today, our democracy needs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 restored to 
its full power and potential. In the past year alone, Republican 
legislatures in nearly 20 States have enacted laws making it harder for 
Americans to vote. In total, more than 440 bills with voting 
restrictions have been introduced in 49 States, and more are on the way 
as the 2022 State legislative sessions get underway. These efforts 
represent the most coordinated assault on voting rights since the 
Voting Rights Act was first passed under President Lyndon Johnson.
  The most troubling of these bills, the ones that I just find 
incredible, grant partisan actors the power to potentially meddle and 
interfere in election administration. Now, where could they possibly 
have come up with that idea; that if you lose an election, you would 
contact the election authorities and ask them to change the results for 
your favor? Where could they have come up with that idea or notion, 
that outrageous idea? Perhaps in the recording that we have of the 
conversation between Georgia election officials and President Donald 
Trump after he lost the election in 2020. That is exactly what he set 
out to do. And now, they are setting up a scenario for that same 
strategy and tactic to be followed in other States if you are 
disappointed with the outcome of an election.
  Arkansas and Kansas have already passed laws that--according to 
experts from the States United Democracy Center, Protect Democracy, and 
Law Forward--could be used to shift the power to influence election 
outcomes to partisan political actors. In those States, they have 
increased the possibility that the voters won't have the last word.
  And legislatures in other States have introduced troubling bills with 
similar implications. For instance, in the State of Arizona, State 
legislators introduced three separate bills that, according to the 
Brennan Center for Justice, ``would have directly empowered partisan 
officials to reject or overturn election results.'' It is an incredible 
outcome.
  More traditional attacks on the right to vote include efforts in 
Michigan, for example, where a group of Republican lawmakers are 
attempting to bypass the State's Governor as well as the State's voters 
to enact a measure restricting voting rights. And, of course, in Texas, 
the State enacted a bill known as S.B. 1, which the Brennan Center 
called ``one of the harshest restrictive voting bills in the country.'' 
One of the most troubling provisions of the law will make it harder for 
voters living with disabilities to receive the accommodations and 
assistance they need to exercise their right to vote.
  The Members of this Senate have a constitutional obligation to 
respond to these State voting laws, and that means ensuring that the 
constitutional right to vote is protected by Federal law and fully 
enforceable. It also means establishing nationwide standards that 
ensure every eligible voter can participate in our democracy. These 
remedies and protections must be available in every State, red and 
blue, from New York to Arizona.
  Allow me to make one other point, Mr. President. I have heard my 
Republican colleagues make the argument: Well, take a look at the 
States across the blue belt of America, States like Delaware and New 
York; they don't go as far as the law that is being suggested by you 
Democrats--for example, same-day registration, for those who want to 
show up and establish their voter registration on the day of the 
election. This bill is going to require it. The State of New York 
doesn't have it. The State of Delaware doesn't have it.
  Well, my message to them is: Good. Let them get it. It is a good, 
positive way to expand the opportunity to vote. Many States have done 
it for years without problems. Those who are lagging, whether they are 
red or blue, should come into the 21st century. It should be our 
mission--our singular mission, before anything else--to make sure that 
every eligible American has the right to vote; that we eliminate the 
burdens and obstacles, the tricks and traps that have been set up in 
all these States that make it so difficult. And we ought to be 
singularly embarrassed as a nation as we look at the film and all the 
videos and all the programs on election day that show African Americans 
standing in line, hour after weary hour, to exercise the right to vote 
while many White voters just scoot through in other localities in the 
same States. There is something fundamentally wrong here, and it is not 
just an accident.

  Last year, I joined with a bipartisan group of my colleagues to 
introduce the updated John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. This 
legislation would restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 
one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history. 
And truthfully, this should, once again, be a bipartisan, unifying 
endeavor.

[[Page S245]]

  It hasn't been that long ago that Republicans and Democrats stood 
together and agreed that this was the right thing to do--to make sure 
that there was no discrimination against American voters. The last time 
we did this was 16 years ago, in 2006, and on a nearly unanimous basis.
  One of the Republicans who voted in support of it was the senior 
Senator from Kentucky, now the Republican leader, who said at that 
time, when he voted for the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 
2006, ``[T]his is a piece of legislation which has worked.''
  Well, let's make sure it can keep working. I hope my colleagues will 
come together, in a bipartisan fashion, and join us in supporting the 
John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act as well as the Freedom to Vote 
Act. Join us in defending American democracy.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. CANTWELL. 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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