[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13205-13206]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             VOTING RIGHTS

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this afternoon, we held a hearing in the 
Constitutional Subcommittee on the Senate Judiciary Committee on new 
voting laws that are being passed in many States. It was one of the 
first hearings on Capitol Hill on the subject, and I thank you very 
much for attending as a member of the subcommittee.
  We had an array of witnesses, starting with Members of the Senate and 
Members of the House of Representatives, expressing various points of 
view on this issue. What we discussed was the new laws in States that 
are establishing new standards for voting in America. It is essential 
for us on this subcommittee, with our jurisdiction and responsibility, 
to focus on this issue of voting rights.
  As has been said so many times, there is no more important right in 
America. The right to vote is a right people have given their lives 
for.
  As we look at the checkered history of the United States, we find 
that though we honor the right to vote, from the very beginning, we 
have compromised that principle. We started off with requirements of 
property ownership. We didn't allow women to vote for so long. African 
Americans were not given that opportunity for decades. Over the years, 
we have had as many as 10 different constitutional amendments focusing 
on extending the right to vote.
  When we get to the heart of a democracy, it is about voting. That is 
why these new State laws are so important and so important for us to 
reflect on.
  Requiring a photo ID for most of us at this station in life or who 
are in business, it seems like a very common

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request. We present our IDs when we get on airplanes and in so many 
different places. But for a substantial percentage of Americans, they 
don't carry a government-issued ID. They live their lives without the 
need of one. Now State laws are requiring these IDs for people before 
they can vote. It sounds like a minor inconvenience, and for many 
people it would be just that. But for others, it could be more.
  If there is not a good opportunity for a person to acquire an ID 
without cost, in a fashion that doesn't create hardship, many people 
will be discouraged from voting. They will just think: This is another 
obstacle in the path of exercising my right to vote, and maybe I will 
stay home.
  That is not good for a democracy. We should be leaning in the other 
direction, trying to expand the electorate, expand the voting populous 
in this country, expand the voice of the voters in this country, not 
the opposite. Many of these State laws in the seven States that have 
now put in photo IDs create significant hardships.
  We have a problem in Wisconsin, for example, and I have written to 
the Governor asking him to give me his impression of how he will deal 
with these issues.
  One out of five people in Wisconsin do not have an ID; 177,000 
elderly people in Wisconsin do not have the ID required by law; more 
than one-third of young people don't have an ID. Particularly among 
African Americans under the age of 24, 70 percent do not have the ID 
necessary to vote in Wisconsin. So, you say, they have their chance. 
The election will not be until next year, they have plenty of time.
  It turns out that in the State of Wisconsin there is only one 
Division of Motor Vehicles Office that is open on a weekend in the 
entire State. That to me seems unconscionable and unacceptable. We need 
to take a hard look at this and the first stop will be the Civil Rights 
Division of the Department of Justice.
  They asked me after the hearing today, what are we going to do next? 
They said what we will do next is follow the law. The law says the 
Department of Justice has to weigh each of these changes, whether it is 
voter registration in Florida or whether it is the voter ID or the 
limitation on early voting and decide whether this violates the basic 
standards of the Voting Rights Act. They have 60 days to do so after 
the law is enacted.
  I have spoken to the division, Civil Rights Division. It is my 
impression they are going to move on this in a timely fashion. This is 
a critical issue. I am afraid it is way too political. The forces 
behind change in virtually every State--not every one but virtually 
every State--have come from the same political side of the equation. It 
is not lost on those of us who do this for a living what is at stake 
here. If certain people are denied access to the polls, discouraged to 
vote, and those people turn out to be historically those voting on one 
side or the other, it is going to create not only a personal hardship 
but a distortion in the election outcome and I hope we can sincerely 
work together on the Judiciary Committee and with the Department of 
Justice to resolve this.

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