[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 151 (Tuesday, September 19, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4598-S4599]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




SENATE RESOLUTION 350--DESIGNATING SEPTEMBER 2023 AS ``NATIONAL VOTING 
                             RIGHTS MONTH''

  Mr. WYDEN (for himself, Mr. Carper, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Markey, Ms. 
Cantwell, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Padilla, Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. Kaine, Ms. 
Stabenow, Mr. Casey, Mr. Whitehouse, Ms. Smith, Mr. Lujan, Mr. Coons, 
Mr. Welch, Ms. Hirono, Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Booker, Mr. 
Sanders, Mr. Menendez, Mr. King, Mr. Fetterman, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Reed, 
Mr. Merkley, Mr. Warner, Mr. Brown, Ms. Duckworth, and Mr. Cardin) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
on the Judiciary:

                              S. Res. 350

       Whereas voting is 1 of the single most important rights 
     that can be exercised in a democracy;
       Whereas, over the course of history, various voter 
     suppression laws in the United States have hindered, and even 
     prohibited, certain individuals and groups from exercising 
     the right to vote;
       Whereas, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, Native 
     Americans and people who were born to United States citizens 
     abroad, people who spoke a language other than English, and 
     people who were formerly subjected to slavery were denied 
     full citizenship and prevented from voting by English 
     literacy tests;
       Whereas, since the 1870s, minority groups such as Black 
     Americans in the South have suffered from the oppressive 
     effects of Jim Crow laws that were designed to prevent 
     political, economic, and social mobility;
       Whereas Black Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native 
     Americans, and other underrepresented voters were subject to 
     violence, poll taxes, literacy tests, all-White primaries, 
     property ownership tests, and grandfather clauses that were 
     designed to suppress the right of those underrepresented 
     individuals to vote;
       Whereas 5,800,000 people in the United States are currently 
     banned from voting because of a felony conviction, including 
     1 in 16 Black adults, due to the shameful entanglement of 
     racial injustice in the criminal legal system and voting 
     access in the United States;
       Whereas members of the aforementioned groups and others are 
     currently, in some cases, subject to intimidation, voter roll 
     purges, and financial barriers that act effectively as 
     modern-day poll taxes;
       Whereas, in 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 
     1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.) to protect the right of Black 
     Americans and other traditionally disenfranchised groups to 
     vote, among other reasons;
       Whereas, in 2013, in the landmark case of Shelby County v. 
     Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), the Supreme Court of the United 
     States invalidated section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 
     (52 U.S.C. 10303), dismantling the preclearance formula 
     provision in that Act that protected voters in States and 
     localities that historically have suppressed the right of 
     minorities to vote;
       Whereas, since the invalidation of the preclearance formula 
     provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 
     et seq.), gerrymandered districts in many States have gone 
     unchallenged and have become less likely to be invalidated by 
     the courts;
       Whereas gerrymandered districts in many States have been 
     found to have a discriminatory impact on traditionally 
     disenfranchised minorities through tactics that include 
     ``cracking'', diluting the voting power of minorities across 
     many districts, and ``packing'', concentrating the power of 
     minority voters into 1 district to reduce their voting power 
     in other districts;
       Whereas the courts have found the congressional and, in 
     some cases, State legislative district maps, in Texas, North 
     Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Alabama, 
     and Louisiana to be gerrymandered districts that were created 
     to favor some groups over others;
       Whereas these restrictive voting laws encompass cutbacks in 
     early voting, voter roll purges, placement of faulty 
     equipment in minority communities, requirement of photo 
     identification, and the elimination of same-day registration;
       Whereas these policies could outright disenfranchise or 
     make voting much more difficult for more than 80,000,000 
     minority, elderly, poor, and disabled voters, among other 
     groups;
       Whereas, in 2016, discriminatory laws in North Carolina, 
     Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Texas were ruled to violate the 
     rights of voters and were overturned by the courts;
       Whereas the decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
     States in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), calls 
     on Congress to update the formula in the Voting Rights Act of 
     1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.);
       Whereas addressing the challenges of administering future 
     elections requires increasing the accessibility of vote-by-
     mail and other limited-contact options to ensure access to 
     the ballot and the protection of the health and safety of 
     voters, and access to the ballot amid a global pandemic like 
     the Coronavirus Disease 2019 public health emergency;
       Whereas Congress must work to combat any attempts to 
     dismantle or underfund the United States Postal Service or 
     obstruct the passage of the mail as blatant tactics of voter 
     suppression and election interference;
       Whereas following the 2020 elections there has been a 
     relentless attack on the right to vote with more than 400 
     bills having been introduced to roll back the right to vote, 
     including such bills being introduced in almost every State 
     and at least 44 of such bills having been signed into law in 
     18 States;
       Whereas there is much more work to be done to ensure all 
     citizens of the United States have the right to vote through 
     free, fair, and accessible elections, and Congress must 
     exercise its constitutional authority to protect the right to 
     vote;
       Whereas National Voter Registration Day in 2023 is Tuesday, 
     September 19; and
       Whereas September 2023 would be an appropriate month--
       (1) to designate as ``National Voting Rights Month''; and
       (2) to ensure that, through the registration of voters and 
     awareness of elections, the democracy of the United States 
     includes all citizens of the United States: Now, therefore, 
     be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) designates September 2023 as ``National Voting Rights 
     Month'';
       (2) encourages all people in the United States to uphold 
     the right of every citizen to exercise the sacred and 
     fundamental right to vote;
       (3) encourages Congress to pass--
       (A) the Freedom to Vote Act (S. 1, 118th Congress), to set 
     basic national standards to make sure all people in the 
     United States can cast their ballots in the way that works 
     best for them, regardless of what ZIP code they live in, 
     improve access to the ballot for people in the United States, 
     advance commonsense election integrity reforms, and protect 
     the democracy of the United States from relentless attacks;
       (B) the Democracy Restoration Act of 2023 (S. 1677, 118th 
     Congress), to restore Federal voting rights to citizens after 
     release from imprisonment, honoring the responsibilities of 
     citizenship and civic engagement necessary for building 
     healthy and safe communities, while welcoming the 
     contributions of

[[Page S4599]]

     people returning home after imprisonment; and
       (C) other voting rights legislation that seeks to advance 
     voting rights and protect elections in the United States;
       (4) recommends that public schools and universities in the 
     United States develop an academic curriculum that educates 
     students about--
       (A) the importance of voting, how to register to vote, 
     where to vote, and the different forms of voting;
       (B) the history of voter suppression in the United States 
     before and after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 
     U.S.C. 10301 et seq.); and
       (C) current measures that have been taken to restrict the 
     vote;
       (5) expresses appreciation for the United States Postal 
     Service having issued a special Representative John R. Lewis 
     stamp--
       (A) to honor the life and legacy of Representative John R. 
     Lewis in supporting voting rights; and
       (B) to remind people in the United States that ordinary 
     citizens risked their lives, marched, and participated in the 
     great democracy of the United States so that all citizens 
     would have the fundamental right to vote; and
       (6) invites Congress to allocate the requisite funds for 
     public service announcements on television, radio, 
     newspapers, magazines, social media, billboards, buses, and 
     other forms of media--
       (A) to remind people in the United States when elections 
     are being held;
       (B) to share important registration deadlines; and
       (C) to urge people to get out and vote.

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