[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 22 (Thursday, February 2, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S215]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              VOTING LAWS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, at this time 1 year ago, the Democratic 
Party was in the middle of a hysterical meltdown over a new voting law 
in the State of Georgia.
  The President of the United States declared that the State's modest 
changes to election procedures were ``Jim Crow 2.0.'' He said the law 
was about ``voter suppression and election subversion.'' He said 
citizens should doubt ``whether your vote counts at all.'' The sitting 
President of the United States said lawmakers' positions on this bill 
would define--listen to this--whether we were ``on the side of Dr. King 
or George Wallace . . . John Lewis or Bull Connor . . . Abraham Lincoln 
or Jefferson Davis.''
  The Senate Democratic leader said his fellow U.S. Senators who are 
Republicans were ``supporting the reenactment of those Jim Crow laws.''
  My colleague from New York, as the Senate majority leader, is 
supposed to safeguard and steward this institution. Instead, he tried 
to destroy the Senate and ``nuke'' the 60-vote threshold so that 
Democrats could take over all 50 States' election laws on a partisan 
basis. And, believe it or not, 47 of the other 49 Democrats went right 
along with him.
  The liberal hysteria spread to the press and the private sector. Woke 
activists started talking about boycotting companies like Coca-Cola and 
Delta Airlines. Major League Baseball caved and moved the All-Star Game 
out of Atlanta, directly harming the local economy, all for the sake of 
symbolism.
  Republicans said this was unhinged, phony outrage over a commonsense 
law that would make it both easy to vote and, of course, hard to cheat. 
Democrats said the new voting rules were evil and racist and the 
literal death of democracy.
  Well, the facts are now in. We have hard evidence. After the new bill 
took effect in early 2022, the State of Georgia held a primary 
election. Do you know what happened? Record turnout for a primary.
  Then, last November, Georgia had a general election. What happened? A 
new record for ballots cast in a midterm.
  Oh, some might say: But that doesn't tell us anything about the 
voting conditions. Maybe there were terribly long lines. Maybe there 
were sinister road blocks, and voters persevered in spite of them.
  Ah, but alas, except an academic research center at the University of 
Georgia spent weeks--weeks--conducting a major survey of Georgia voters 
after the election. Let's take a look at what they found.
  Seventy-two percent of all Georgia voters--and 73 percent of Black 
voters, specifically--said their voting experience was ``excellent.'' 
Ninety-two percent of all voters--and 92 percent of Black voters, 
specifically--said either that voting had gotten easier since the prior 
election or that there was no difference. Ninety-two percent of all 
voters in Georgia said that voting had either gotten easier or that 
there was no difference between that election and prior elections. More 
than 70 percent of Black voters in Georgia said they waited less than 
10 minutes to cast their ballot.
  This is all with the supposed ``Jim Crow'' law in action: record-high 
turnout, lightning-fast voting lines, a supermajority of African-
American voters rating their experience under the new voting rules as 
``excellent.''
  Ah, but here is the icing on the cake. The same Democratic Party that 
cheered Major League Baseball from moving the All-Star Game out of 
Atlanta--listen to this--now has Atlanta on the short list for the next 
Democratic National Convention.
  Here is what happened. We were right, and they were wrong. But it 
goes beyond that. These people actually lied. They invoked our darkest 
history and slandered half the country because they wanted more power 
for themselves.
  Some of the most powerful people in our entire country, including the 
President of the United States, staked their personal credibility to 
these claims. President Biden screamed from a podium that the bad old 
days of Jim Crow were back. Over this?
  The majority leader from New York tried to destroy the Senate. Over 
this?
  The American people were subjected to months of baseless, pointless, 
media haranguing. Over this?
  And the country is supposed to go on pretending like nothing 
happened? We are all supposed to take the President, Vice President, 
and Senate Democrats seriously the next time they start shouting and 
waving their arms about the next supposed crisis? I don't think so. I 
don't think the American people will forget who kept their credibility 
and who lit theirs on fire.

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