Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Ron Chernow is well known as a historian and prolific writer who has written biographies of some of the most amazing people who have lived in our country. One, of course, is on the Founding Father, George Washington, and another which received acclaim even on Broadway in New York is the well-known biography of Alexander Hamilton, which inspired Mr. Miranda to write a musical, which is probably the most successful musical of our time.

Mr. Chernow has also written another book, which I am working my way through very carefully, the biography of Ulysses Grant. It is about 900 pages long. It is a heavy book to carry from one living space to another as a U.S. Senator but well worth the effort. It tells the story of this man who came to lead the Union Army to victory in the Civil War and ultimately became President of the United States. As I have read this biography of Ulysses S. Grant, I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that one issue emerged after the Civil War, which was probably one of the most challenging of all, the issue about the right of African Americans to vote in the South after the Civil War--the so-called period of Reconstruction.

I also commend to those who are interested in the issue this book by Carol Anderson, entitled ``One Person, No Vote.'' Carol Anderson is a professor at Emory in Atlanta, GA. She wrote an earlier book, which I also recommend, called ``White Rage.'' This book, ``One Person, No Vote,'' really tries to describe throughout history, particularly after the Civil War, efforts at voter suppression and their impact on our democracy.

Professor Anderson was kind enough to ask me to write the forward to this book, which I was happy to do. I am happy to read this book as well because it went into the detail about what happened after the end of the Civil War, when African Americans were legally and constitutionally declared to be citizens of the United States and then set out to exercise their right to vote. Initially, there was some success, but over time the White population in the South started suppressing that right to vote, passing laws that demanded literacy tests of those who would show up to vote, constitutional tests, poll taxes, and the like. Over time, it dramatically diminished the African- American vote in the South, and that diminishment led many Blacks to pick up and leave in the great migration north. Their departure from the South to the North was to the benefit of States like Illinois, where many thousands came to find work and an opportunity to exercise their own freedom, which they thought had been won by the Civil War.

How important is this right to vote? Well, in the words of John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, at his hearing in 2005, he said that the right to vote is ``preservative of all other rights''--preservative of all other rights. It is that fundamental to our democracy that we allow those who are eligible to step forward and to express their will when an election is called and choose the candidates of their choice.

Over the period of time after the end of the Civil War, there were extraordinary efforts taken to suppress the right of African Americans to vote. I say, with some embarrassment but in reality, those were largely promulgated by people who described themselves as Democrats in those days. They were the ones largely in control of the political infrastructure of the South who did their best to limit the right of Blacks to participate.

One of the noteworthy events in this history occurred in 1890 in Mississippi, when they passed the Mississippi Plan. In Carol Anderson's words, ``a dizzying array of poll taxes, literacy tests, understanding clauses, newfangled voter registration rules, and `good character' clauses--all intentionally racially discriminatory but dressed up in the genteel garb of bringing `integrity' to the voting booth. This feigned legal innocence was legislative evil genius.''

She goes on to explain how the so-called Mississippi Plan became a template for other Southern States to try to find ways to pass local and State laws making it increasingly difficult for individuals to vote, particularly African Americans and people who did not have great wealth. It was a success for many years, and the participation of Black voters diminished dramatically as a result of it.

I know this has sounded like a history lesson to this moment, and it would be but for the fact that we are facing this issue again in a vote we will face this week in the U.S. Senate.

There is a nominee for the Federal Court in the Eastern District of North Carolina named Thomas Farr. Mr. Farr's participation in voter suppression is well documented. In fact, the Congressional Black Caucus has described Mr. Farr as ``the preeminent attorney for North Carolina Republicans seeking to curtail the voting rights of people of color.''

Mr. Farr worked as legal counsel for the 1990 campaign of Senator Jesse Helms. That campaign engaged in well-documented, deeply disturbing tactics aimed at suppressing the Black vote in North Carolina.

As an example, the Helms campaign sent out over 100,000 postcards to mainly African-American voters warning that they might be ineligible to vote for residency reasons. The postcards from the Helms campaign, which Mr. Farr worked on as legal counsel, warned that the Black recipients might be arrested for voter fraud if they came to the polls to vote.

Mr. Farr initially told the Judiciary Committee, in which I serve, that he did not participate in any campaign meetings in which this mailing was discussed. However, news reports then indicated that Mr. Farr did, in fact, participate in an October 1990 meeting that included discussion about mailings that challenged voters' residency.

Mr. Farr, this nominee for a lifetime appointment to the Federal court in North Carolina, later admitted participating in the meeting, despite what he had said earlier. A former Justice Department attorney told the Raleigh News & Observer in 2009 that Mr. Farr ``was certainly involved in the scheme as it was being developed.''

Mr. Farr also represented North Carolina in litigation over a notorious voter suppression law that the Fourth Circuit struck down in 2016. So his experience in this earlier Helms campaign was not confined when it came to voter suppression; by 2016 he was at it again. The Fourth Circuit found that the law--which Mr. Farr defended in court-- had ``target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision'' and that the legislature had ``enacted . . . the law with discriminatory intent.''

That was the very law that Mr. Farr defended before the court.

This man, who now seeks this lifetime appointment to the Federal bench, has not just a history but a pattern of voter suppression. This phrase--that the law he was defending ``target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision''--has probably been repeated more than any I can remember in recent memory on this issue.

Additionally, Mr. Farr represented North Carolina in litigation related to racial gerrymandering and violations of the National Voter Registration Act.

It is particularly troubling that Mr. Farr has been nominated for a judgeship that, as the minority leader mentioned earlier, was denied during the Obama administration when they submitted two African American nominees. The Republican Senators from North Carolina kept the seat vacant and would not allow an African American to fill it. Though President Obama tried twice, they objected to the nominees. Republicans held this seat vacant for years, clearly with the intention to fill it with someone like Mr. Farr.

Let me quote what the Reverend William J. Barber II, a prominent civil rights leader in North Carolina, wrote about Thomas Farr in TIME magazine recently:

I know Farr. I know what he's done, what he stands for and just how detrimental he will be to his constituents if confirmed.

There are many conservative lawyers in North Carolina who could serve as Federal judge who do not have the blemished record of advocacy for voter suppression that Mr. Farr brings to the Senate. As Reverend Barber wrote in TIME magazine: ``Being a conservative is not the same thing as spending almost 40 years fighting to block full citizenship for all Americans.''

Given his decades-long history of supporting and defending efforts to restrict the right to vote, I must oppose Mr. Farr's nomination.

I must ask: In this moment in time in the 21st century, as we still battle over the issues that divided this Nation during the Civil War, why would this Senate stand and give Mr. Thomas Farr a lifetime appointment to the Federal bench in North Carolina? What does it say about the majority in the Senate that we would give this man, with his personal history of voter suppression, this opportunity?

The reality is this, and it is a grim reality: I believe the Republican Party has decided that demographics are not on their side and that the emerging minorities in the United States of America are not likely to vote their way. So they have embarked on a national program to limit the rights of people to vote--a national program that I find disgusting. To think that the Koch brothers finance ALEC--the American Legislative Exchange Council--and that ALEC promulgates these State laws in an effort to continue to suppress the vote carries on a sad and despicable tradition.

Back in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, it was the Democratic Party, which I belong to, that unfortunately was the home for many of these bigots and led many efforts of voter suppression. Today, sadly, it is the Republican Party--the party of Abraham Lincoln--that is trying to suppress the vote of African Americans with many overt, covert efforts. The appointment of Thomas Farr to fill this vacancy is as overt as can be. We know who he is. We know what he believes. We know what he stands for. And we know that if he is given this lifetime appointment on the Federal bench, he is likely to continue his lifetime history of trying to deny votes to those who are African Americans.

This Chamber that I stand in, with some awe every time I enter it, became the Senate legislative Chamber in January of 1859, even before the Civil War began. It witnessed not only the departure of the southern Senators who were loyal to the Confederacy; it witnessed even Union soldiers coming in and camping out here, at times during the conflict, when they needed a roof over their heads. It also witnessed the battles over reconstruction when the so-called radical Republicans were determined to make sure that African Americans would be given a fighting chance in the south. It witnessed the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, and it witnessed many other events that have led us to this moment in time in the year 2018.

Many of the debates that took place on this floor, many of the sentiments that were debated back and forth over the decades, continue to this day to our generation, to our time, and to our Senate. When we bring Thomas Farr for a vote this week in the U.S. Senate, I hope that the party of Abraham Lincoln--the Republican Party of the United States--will join Democrats in stopping this nomination. Can we send a clear message, a bipartisan message from the Senate this week that Thomas Farr and the voter suppression in which he has engaged throughout his life is as unacceptable today as it was in the dark days after the end of the Civil War? That is our responsibility.

This Senator will be voting no on Thomas Farr.

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