[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12256-12257]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      PROTECTING THE RIGHT TO VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaMalfa). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Pocan) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise on behalf of the 
Congressional Progressive Caucus. Tonight, the Congressional 
Progressive Caucus would like to talk about voting rights and how 
important that is to this country and to every single person in our 
country.
  Last week, both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees held 
hearings on the Voting Rights Act and what steps we need to take 
forward to protect the right to vote in this country. There's 
potentially no right that is more important, no issue that is more 
important to this country that we should consider than our right to 
vote. It should be our most fundamental right. It's the right that 
preserves all other liberties that Americans hold dear.
  When aspiring Americans take the citizenship test, they're asked, 
What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens? And the 
correct answer: the right to vote. Protecting this right should be the 
primary concern of our democracy. So you would think that when that 
question is asked, What are our most important rights, and the answer 
is, The right to vote, it would be something that's enshrined in our 
U.S. Constitution and you would think there is explicitly a right to 
vote. I certainly thought that. But you would be wrong. It's startling 
to think, at first. It seems against everything you think you've been 
taught and against the principles that our country has been built on. 
But within our Constitution there is no explicit right to vote.
  We have to remember that when our Constitution was originally 
ratified, the right to vote was specifically not guaranteed. In fact, 
it was an incredibly restrictive law. Only white male property owners 
above the age of 21 could vote. That was less than 20 percent of the 
country's population at the time. Many of our Founders specifically did 
not want to expand the franchise of voting, believing most in society 
were unqualified for the privilege. In fact, John Adams famously wrote:

       It is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy 
     and altercation as would be opened by attempting to alter the 
     qualifications of voters. There will be no end of it.

  Mr. Speaker, since that time, our Nation's attitudes towards voting 
have changed slowly but very progressively. But the fact that we have 
needed constitutional amendments prohibiting discrimination based on 
race, gender, and age demonstrates that we possess no guaranteed right 
to vote in our Constitution.
  Meanwhile, these accomplishments have oftentimes been accompanied by 
a myriad of tactics, laws, and strategies meant to suppress the vote: 
literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, voter intimidation.

                              {time}  2045

  These targets of discriminatory efforts have changed as well. Our 
first literacy tests were adopted to keep Irish-Catholic immigrants 
from voting. Then we saw a wide array of efforts to stop African 
Americans from going to the polls.
  Now, today, the bills introduced to restrict the right to vote may be 
a little less obvious and voters lawmakers wish to suppress are a 
little harder to define, but these efforts are nonetheless 
discriminatory.
  We have seen burdensome registration requirements and reduced early 
voting opportunities, which are often critical for low-income Americans 
who cannot take off work on Election Day. African Americans and 
Latinos, in particular, have utilized early voting days in very high 
numbers.
  College students have been the targets of a number of efforts to 
decrease their participation, from disallowing student IDs as an 
acceptable form of voter identification, to stricter residency 
requirements, to limited polling locations on campuses.
  Voter ID and burdensome registration requirements often make it 
harder for senior citizens also to be able to vote. In Wisconsin, we've 
had this issue before us. Many senior citizens no longer carry their 
driver's license because they no longer drive, and yet that's one of 
the very things that they may need to go vote with a photo ID.
  I myself didn't realize the full extent of the attack on our right to 
vote until voter ID laws were actually introduced in my home State of 
Wisconsin. As is often the case with voter ID laws, Republicans 
justified the photo ID requirement as a way to counter voter fraud in 
our State.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is this crisis of voter 
fraud is a fraud in and of itself. As the Brennan Center for Justice 
points out, you are more likely to be killed by lightning than you are 
to commit voter fraud in your lifetime. To be killed by lightning is 
more common than voter fraud in this country.
  Now, in Wisconsin, we're very proud that we're one of the top three 
States for voter participation--Maine, Minnesota, and Wisconsin--and 
we're known for our clean and effective elections. Our chief elections 
officer found that since the year 2000 in statewide elections the State 
has seen about 20 instances of voter fraud out of more than 6 million 
votes cast. Most of those instances of voter fraud involved felons who 
were ineligible to vote but voted--a problem that doesn't get fixed 
with a photo ID.
  So why did the Wisconsin Legislature believe we needed to combat 
against voter fraud? What does it mean when you have a cure in search 
of a disease? Well, in my experience, there's usually an ulterior 
motive. And in the case of restrictive voting laws, the design is to 
suppress the vote, to encourage lower voter turnout in the hopes of 
influencing elections. In other words, it's about elected officials 
trying to pick their voters rather than the voters picking their 
elected officials.
  Now, in Wisconsin, we're very fortunate because our State 
constitution specifically guarantees the right to vote. Because of this 
provision, the suppressive voting laws that have been introduced in our 
State have largely been blocked by the courts.
  But what I did realize is that, while Wisconsin had a strong 
amendment

[[Page 12257]]

that protected our right to vote, our U.S. Constitution does not. 
Unfortunately, without a guaranteed Federal right to vote, we will 
continue to see the types of disenfranchising efforts that have become 
a plague on our modern society.
  Mr. Speaker, that takes us to today and last month's Supreme Court 
decision that struck down section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 4 
was the act's preclearance formula, the formula that determined which 
States and counties needed to get Federal approval before they make 
voting law changes. The Court ruled that the formula was outdated and, 
thus, unconstitutional.
  Now, I think the Court may have forgotten that when we reauthorized 
the Voting Rights Act, overwhelmingly, just from 2006, we had 390 
supporters in the House of Representatives and a unanimous 98-0 vote in 
the Senate. Clearly, there was strong support in the legislative body 
for the Voting Rights Act that was now turned aside by the Supreme 
Court.
  Either way, what we know for certain is that before the ink was even 
dry on the Supreme Court decision, State legislatures began to act. Of 
the nine States that were fully covered by the Voting Rights Act, six 
have already started to move on legislation that would restrict the 
right to vote. Let me just read you a couple quotes from a couple of 
these States.
  Texas--this was really quick. This is the headline: ``That was quick: 
Texas moves forward with voter ID law after Supreme Court ruling.'' 
That's from the National Journal on June 25:

       The Texas law requires voters to show photo identification 
     to vote--a measure that was blocked by the Justice 
     Department, arguing the law would discriminate against racial 
     minorities. At the time, Attorney General Eric Holder called 
     the law a ``poll tax.''

  And that's where Texas went as soon as that Supreme Court decision 
happened.
  In Mississippi, the headline: ``Mississippi's Secretary of State 
Moves to Enforce Voter ID Law.'' Their new voter ID law may seem 
innocuous, but more than one out of 10 of every eligible voters do not 
have a government-issued ID, clearly making it harder for people to 
vote in the State of Mississippi.
  Finally, just another example is in the State of North Carolina. The 
headline: ``Senate Republicans Unveil Stricter North Carolina Voter ID 
Bill.'' Again, according to the article from the Charlotte Observer, 
Republican lawmakers are emboldened in their effort to push a photo 
identification requirement for in-person voting after the U.S. Supreme 
Court struck down a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The ruling 
means the bill would no longer need Justice Department approval before 
it becomes law.
  So we're seeing in State after State after State that was protected 
by the Voting Rights Act that States now are trying to change those 
laws and make it harder for people to have that ability to go out and 
vote.
  Now, I happen to agree with the Court that the formula was outdated. 
As I previously detailed, it doesn't reflect the current attempts to 
restrict the right to vote. In fact, it underestimates them.
  Let's look at it this way: under the Voting Rights Act, nine entire 
States and certain counties in six others were covered, but just this 
year already, more than 80 restrictive voting laws in 31 States have 
been introduced.
  Given my experience in Wisconsin and what I'm seeing in States across 
the country, I knew that we had to take action at the national level. 
So I got together with Congressman Keith Ellison from Minnesota and we 
worked with FairVote to work on a right to vote amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution that would guarantee an affirmative right to vote for 
every single American.
  Our amendment is as simple as it is necessary. It says that every 
American citizen possesses the fundamental right to vote in any public 
election where they reside, and Congress has the power to protect this 
right.
  This amendment would create an important change from current policy. 
No more would Americans have to prove that their right to vote has been 
infringed. If you live in a State right now, you have to prove that 
that State, in changing voting laws, has somehow infringed your ability 
to vote in order to have success. Instead, under our constitutional 
amendment, the burden of proof would go to the States, and the States 
would have to demonstrate that any new law they put in place would not 
burden any of their citizens' ability to have a right to vote.
  Now, our vote is the great equalizer in this country. My brother and 
I have one thing in common with the Koch brothers: we each come with 
one single vote. The average person in the world, you may not have 
billions of dollars like Sheldon Adelson, but the one thing that you 
have in common with Sheldon Adelson is that you each have one single 
vote.
  Now, I understand that ratifying the Constitution is not an easy 
task, but on this measure, it's a deeply important one. We can, and we 
must, build a grassroots movement needed to ensure our most fundamental 
right is not subject to the partisan whims of State legislatures.
  I am holding in my hand pages and pages of people across the country 
who support a national right to vote constitutional amendment. Over 
28,000 people have signed petitions. They're circulated by U.S. Action 
and PCCC, Bold Progressives that have got signatures saying we need to 
make our Constitution work for every single American, that every single 
person has that right to vote. This has 28,000 names right here of 
people who support this most fundamental right.
  Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, the right to vote is not a 
Republican right or a Democratic right, it's an American right. And if 
the recent Voting Rights Act decision demonstrates anything, it's that 
we need to do everything we can to help protect that right.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to reinforce that the Congressional 
Progressive Caucus is going to do everything that we can to make sure 
that every American has the right to vote, and that a right to vote 
amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the most sure, most effective way 
to get that done.
  Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________