[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 11 (Tuesday, January 18, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S259-S261]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               H.R. 5746

  Mr. PADILLA. Madam President, just yesterday, we, the Nation, 
celebrated the moral vision and exceptional courage of the Reverend Dr. 
Martin Luther King, Jr.
  Born and raised under the violent oppression of Jim Crow segregation, 
Dr.

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King deeply felt the lasting wounds of slavery and segregation. Yet he 
believed in the promise of America's highest ideal: a system of 
democracy that we are all created equal; democracy that recognizes that 
we are all created equal.
  In 1957, Dr. King told a crowd of civil rights leaders:

       Our most urgent plea to the federal government is to 
     guarantee our voting rights.

  He went on to say:

       Give us the ballot and we will creatively join in the 
     freeing of the soul of America.

  Time and again, from a bridge in Selma to the steps of the Lincoln 
Memorial, Dr. King and the civil rights movement collectively forced 
this country to confront the brutal injustice of White supremacy.
  Dr. King kindled a movement of peaceful protests, of voter 
registration, and a legal revolution. His leadership helped secure the 
passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965--a monument to freedom and a 
guardian of our multiracial democracy.
  As important a step as that was, Dr. King also understood that the 
path of progress, the road to freedom, would not be linear, it would 
not be direct, and it would be threatened by setbacks. Recent years 
have illustrated just how right Dr. King was. The clock is turning back 
on voting rights, and far too many people both inside this Capitol and 
outside it are ignoring or denying the alarm bells.
  To truly honor Dr. King, we must rededicate ourselves to the cause of 
freedom and equality. We cannot wait for a convenient season to act. We 
cannot wait for another Bloody Sunday. Look around. This is our moment. 
The threats to democracy today may look different than Bull Connor with 
the bullhorn, but they are no less real.
  Now, when Republicans claim that this is all hyperbole or hysteria, 
as Senator Romney just referenced, consider this: In the year since our 
Nation's most secure election ever, with record voter turnout, 
Republican State legislatures have passed 34 laws, not expanding access 
to the ballot, restricting access to the ballot and also threatening 
election security.
  Just look at Georgia--yes, Georgia--where Republicans passed an 
elections bill, SB 202, on a purely partisan basis this last spring. In 
the 2020 election, Georgians voted in record numbers. Many voted by 
mail or used early voting options to be able to cast their ballots 
safely and securely in the midst of this once-in-a-century global 
health pandemic. Guess what happened. Those ballots were processed, 
counted, audited, and the results certified.
  So how did Georgia Republicans respond? They wrote SB 202 to cut the 
number of early voting drop boxes in Atlanta by more than 75 percent to 
make it harder--not easier but harder--for voters who mistakenly go to 
the wrong polling place to cast their ballots and have their votes in 
statewide contests counted; to stop new voters from being able to 
register to vote in a runoff election if there is one. Now, make no 
mistake, Republicans will deny the intention, but the effect is clear: 
These changes disproportionately disenfranchise the votes and the 
voices of people of color.

  When voters end up standing in line for hours to cast their vote on 
election day, as voters of color disproportionately do, SB 202 prevents 
volunteers from offering them food or water.
  Now, Senator Romney said that these provisions are in place to 
prevent the harassment of voters waiting to vote. Look at what other 
States have done. There is a clear distinction between somebody 
harassing a voter, interfering with the electoral process, versus 
offering a thirsty neighbor a drink. So outlaw harassment. I think it 
kind of is. The general public knows the distinction. So think about 
that--someone standing in line outdoors, with weather, for hours to do 
their patriotic duty, and Georgia Republicans make it a crime to give 
that person a bottle of water.
  SB 202 isn't about election security or voter fraud. The data on that 
is clear. Voter fraud is exceedingly rare in Georgia and across the 
country. SB 202 is about erecting barriers for low-income voters, for 
voters of color, for younger voters to participate in our democracy.
  As a member of the Senate Rules Committee, I traveled to Georgia last 
summer with my colleagues for a field hearing on voter suppression. 
Just last week, I was invited to join President Biden and Vice 
President Harris in Georgia as well. So when Minority Leader McConnell 
tries to tell you that no State in America is making it harder to vote, 
he is wrong. The people of this country deserve to hear the truth, and 
not just from Georgia but in Texas, where a new law empowers partisan 
poll watchers to threaten election officials with lawsuits; in Arizona, 
where a new law will unnecessarily cut tens of thousands of voters--
eligible voters--from the permanent early voting list.
  Thirty-four new laws in this past year alone will raise obstacles for 
people who simply want to cast their ballot, and that is nothing to say 
of the hundreds more that have been proposed that will surely be 
reintroduced in future years and future sessions if we do not act.
  The clock on Dr. King's victory is already turning back. The alarm 
bells of our democracy are ringing. They have been ringing since the 
year 2013, when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Yes, it 
may still be in place, but the preclearance requirement--the strongest 
protection within the Voting Rights Act that stood to prevent 
discriminatory election laws for nearly five decades--was undone by the 
Supreme Court in their decision in Shelby v. Holder. Yet the Senate has 
failed three times this last year to even debate a voting rights bill. 
We failed to debate because of the filibuster rule, which allows a 
minority of Senators to obstruct the voice of the American majority.
  Republican Senators claim that our legislation, the Freedom to Vote 
Act, is partisan and divisive, but what goal could be more American 
than securing the fundamental right to vote for all eligible Americans?
  If Republican Senators are sincere about opposing partisan changes to 
election laws, then they should join us in condemning partisan voter 
suppression in Georgia, in Texas, in Arizona, and across the country. 
Instead, Senate Republicans only complain about and obstruct our 
efforts here in the Senate to respond to these laws, and in doing so, 
they leave Democrats no choice. We must change the filibuster rule to 
protect voting rights for every American.
  The Senate exists to serve American democracy, and the Senate rules 
exist to help the Senate serve American democracy. When those rules 
endanger our democracy, the answer is simple: We must change them.
  It is not unprecedented. The Senate changed the filibuster in 1917 to 
protect our Nation from the threat of World War I. The Senate changed 
the filibuster in 1975 to try to restore the function of this body. In 
recent decades, the Senate has made more than 160 exceptions to the 
filibuster to do what is best for the Nation. Today, it is time for us 
to do so once again.
  With all due respect to the history and the traditions of the Senate, 
our job is to protect the future of this country, beginning with our 
democracy. As Martin Luther King once told us, ``America is essentially 
a dream, a dream . . . yet unfulfilled.''
  Today, it falls on each of us to take up Dr. King's lifelong 
struggle. This is our moment. This is our moment to debate. This is our 
moment to vote. We must work together to pass a voting rights law that 
secures the vote for every American regardless of race, religion, 
ability, or gender.

  Sometimes progress requires that we change the rules, as we did last 
month when we changed the filibuster to protect our economy. Sometimes 
progress requires that one party act alone, as the courageous 
architects of the 15th Amendment did a century and a half ago.
  Look around this Senate, and think how surprised the men who created 
the filibuster in the early 1800s would be to see a Senator Warnock, a 
Senator Baldwin, myself, and others serving in this Chamber today, but 
change that strengthens our democracy is change for the better.
  Colleagues, we must rise to meet this general moment of challenge in 
the spirit of Dr. King and pass these voting rights bills.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.

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