[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 90 (Tuesday, May 24, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2638-S2639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Election Laws

  Mr. President, now on an entirely different matter, 5 months ago, 
Democrats in the media were saying the sky was falling because of some 
States' mainstream voting laws. Georgia passed a voting law that was 
more open

[[Page S2639]]

than the rules on the books in blue States like New York and Delaware. 
Texas passed a law that switched off some one-time COVID exceptions, 
like keeping polls open in the middle of the night.
  These mainstream laws brought a torrent--a torrent--of hysteria from 
the far left, from corporate America, Hollywood, and the corporate 
media rushed to condemn laws they hadn't even read. It was almost 
completely untethered from reality. One poll a few months back found 
that less than half of 1 percent of Americans said voting laws were the 
country's most important problem. More Americans actually believe 
current voting laws are too lax than believe they are too restrictive. 
But the far left bubble became fixated--fixated--on this nonissue.
  The manufactured outrage just kept coming. At the peak of the 
crescendo a few months back, 48 of 50 Senate Democrats voted to break 
this institution--to break this institution--to ram through a 3-year-
old voting takeover bill on a partisan basis. That is how close we 
came.
  Now, fortunately, a bipartisan majority saved the Senate as an 
institution, and now, we are seeing the hard evidence that, as we all 
knew, the hysteria was never based on fact to begin with.
  Georgia's primary election day is today. But we already know a lot, 
thanks to early voting figures.
  And here was a Washington Post headline a few days ago, ``Voting is 
surging in Georgia despite controversial new election law.''
  The story goes on:

       [R]ecord-breaking turnout is undercutting predictions that 
     the Georgia Election Integrity Act . . . would lead to a 
     falloff in voting. By the end of Friday, the final day of 
     early in-person voting, nearly 800,000 Georgians had cast 
     ballots--more than three times--three times the number in 
     2018, and--

  Listen to this--

     higher even than in 2020, a presidential year.

  Turnout is up despite the fact that fewer Georgians are availing 
themselves of the State's no-excuse mail-in voting. Georgians are 
getting back to in-person voting, a return to prepandemic norms, and 
doing so in huge, huge numbers.
  The reporter quoted one 70-year-old Black voter who was stunned by 
the easiness of the voting process after all the disinformation that 
had been thrown around.
  Here is what she said:

       I had heard that they were going to try to deter us in any 
     way possible . . . [so] [t]o go in there and vote as easily 
     as I did . . . I was really thrown back.

  Shame--shame--on the Democrats who pushed the Big Lie that a grand 
scheme was afoot to prevent millions of Americans from voting. It was 
never true. It was just to push their preexisting policy agenda. The 
fake hysteria was just a pretext to push a sweeping national takeover 
of election laws that Democrats had already had on the shelf for a 
number of years.
  Now the rhetoric is proving false right before our eyes. These 
commonsense Republican laws appear to be achieving just what the 
American people want. The American people want to make it easier to 
vote and harder to cheat.
  This whole episode proves exactly why our democracy still needs its 
cooling saucer. This is exactly the reason why the U.S. Senate exists, 
so that one party cannot lose its head to a short-term fever and upend 
massive Federal laws on a partisan basis under false pretexts.
  Thank goodness--thank goodness--a bipartisan majority stopped 
Democrats from destroying the Senate over this fake issue a few months 
back.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.