[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5637]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                DISCRIMINATORY VOTER IDENTIFICATION LAWS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Johnson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to talk about the 
discriminatory voter ID laws that are undemocratic and simply un-
American.
  The American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as ALEC, has 
long been a secretive collaboration between big business and 
conservative Tea Party Republican politicians serving in this Nation's 
State and Federal legislatures. ALEC's goal is to advance the special 
interests of large corporations and the super-rich and wealthy by any 
means necessary.
  Yesterday, I discussed how ALEC has fiendishly and unabashedly 
produced legislative policy that degrades our air and water quality and 
wrecks our environment. Last week, I outlined how ALEC has infiltrated 
our criminal justice system by producing legislation that stimulates 
higher and higher levels of incarceration, to the benefit and to the 
surging profits of the private for-profit prison industry.
  And if that wasn't enough, with 194 days left until the general 
election, ALEC has been working hard to suppress the votes of the most 
vulnerable in our society. ALEC has met with its corporate allies and 
right-wing State officials behind closed doors to promote legislation 
to suppress the votes of likely Democratic voters.
  By making it more difficult for people to exercise their right to 
vote, ALEC's model voter ID act grants an electoral advantage to 
Republicans, while undermining the right of individuals to vote.
  In addition, ALEC has worked to make it easier for corporations to 
participate in the political process. Their Public Safety and Elections 
Task Force promotes model legislation that would disenfranchise 
millions of voters, devastate campaign finance reform, and allow for 
greater corporate influence in elections.
  Mr. Speaker, it has injected these corrosive laws into our States, 
and they have spread like untreated cancer. Bills based on ALEC's model 
legislation have already been introduced in 34 States and passed in 
many of those States.

                              {time}  1040

  Voter suppression comes in many forms, from new voter ID laws to 
eliminating Election Day registration to restricting voter registration 
drives by community groups to reducing the number of days for early 
voting and limiting the number of days for voter registration. There is 
no doubt that ALEC is directly tied to the proliferation of these voter 
ID laws in the States' legislatures.
  These policies are not about preventing fraud in the voting process. 
This legislation is solely about disenfranchising minorities, the 
elderly, and other at-risk voters, such as the poor, who are unlikely 
to have the technical kinds of ID that these pieces of legislation 
demand.
  After the spotlight has started to shine on ALEC, they have come out 
publicly and said, Okay, we're going to get out of the public policy 
business. They're not going to not write any more model legislation 
like the Florida ``shoot first and ask questions later.'' They're not 
going to introduce any more of that type of legislation. They also have 
announced they're going to shut down their Public Safety and Elections 
Task Force, which is the committee that produced the voter suppression 
legislation.
  That's a good thing. But the damage has already been done, and we're 
going to have to remain vigilant about this group, this shadowy group, 
ALEC, this unholy alliance between Tea Party Republican legislators and 
big business. We'll have to keep our eyes open. I'll have more to talk 
about in the coming days.

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