Freedom to Vote Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in support of very important new legislation, the Freedom to Vote Act, that I introduced yesterday with the members of the Voting Rights Working Group assembled by Leader Schumer, which includes Senator Manchin; Senator Merkley, who is here with us today on the floor and who has been such a leader on voting issues, including the For the People Act; Senator Padilla; and Senators King, Kaine, Tester, and Warnock.

The freedom to vote is fundamental to all of our freedoms. Following the 2020 elections in which more Americans voted than ever before, in the middle of a public health crisis, we have seen unprecedented attacks on our democracy in States across the country. These attacks demand an immediate Federal response.

The Freedom to Vote Act will set basic national standards to make sure all Americans can cast their ballots in the way that works best for them, regardless of what ZIP Code they live in.

I want to thank Senator Schumer for his leadership in pulling together our working group that got this legislation across the finish line and, as I mentioned, Senators Merkley and Manchin for their work on this crucial bill.

It has been over 8 months since that violent mob of insurrectionists stormed through this very spot and desecrated our Capitol, the temple of our democracy. They opened the desks in this Chamber. They got up and sat at that desk where you are sitting now, Mr. President. It was an attack on our Republic.

And as I said from the inaugural stage just 2 weeks later under that beautiful blue sky, at the very place where you could still see the spray paint at the bottom of the columns and the makeshift windows behind us, ``This is the day our democracy picks itself up, brushes off the dust, and does what America always does: goes forward as a nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.''

We took back our democracy that day with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents all sitting at that platform, seeing a new President and Vice President be inaugurated. We took back our democracy that day, and we will take it back this day with this new bill, with the support of 78 percent of Americans who favor 2 weeks of early voting, a very important provision in this bill, and 83 percent of voters who support public disclosures of all contributions. We will take it back again from those who are trying to take away people's constitutional right to vote.

With over 400 bills introduced in nearly every State to limit the freedom to vote, we can't simply sit back and watch our democracy be threatened again. Whether it is threatened with bear spray and crowbars and axes or long lines or the elimination of ballot boxes or the secret money, it is still under siege. When we are faced with a coordinated effort across the country to limit the freedom to vote, we must stand up and do what is right.

Sometimes people say: What is going on? It worked so well during the pandemic, during a public health crisis. More people voted than ever before.

Well, that is because they voted by mail. That is because some States, both blue States and red States, changed their laws to make it easier to vote, while still protecting the sanctity of the vote.

So why is this happening? Well, I think our colleague Senator Rev. Raphael Warnock put it best when he said: ``Some people don't want some people to vote.'' We will not stand for that because that is not how a democracy works.

Leader Schumer has said he will bring this new bill to a vote as soon as next week because we know our democracy cannot wait. This bill builds on the framework put forward by Senator Manchin in June and includes many of the key reforms in the For the People Act, guaranteeing all Americans, as I noted, access to at least 15 days of early voting, including weekends.

Look at what just happened in Georgia. We just had a field hearing down there with the Rules Committee. In Georgia, all of a sudden they passed a law that says, yeah, you can vote on weekends early on, but when it counts in a runoff period, in those last 28 days, you can't vote on weekends anymore. That is only done for one reason: to make it harder for people to vote. That is why this bill is so important.

What else does it do? It ensures that all voters can cast a mail-in ballot and makes it easier to register to vote. That is pretty important as we see Republican, Democrat, and Independent voters all across this country wanting to be able to cast mail-in ballots. It is the safest way for so many of them to vote, even today.

Some States even required them to get a notary signature in the middle of a pandemic, through a glass window, when they were in the hospital. You wonder why we want to have some Federal minimum standards in place.

What else? Increased transparency through the DISCLOSE Act. I already noted that over 80 percent of people in this country want to see that, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. It would require super-PACs and issue advocacy groups to disclose donors who contribute more than $10,000 and stop the use of transfers between organizations to cloak the identity, to hide the identity of the source of those contributions.

It would counter partisan interference in election administration and protect election officials because not only do we need to make sure people can vote, we need to make sure their vote is counted.

It would prevent voter purges by requiring States to use objective and reliable evidence to remove voters and prohibit the targeting of voters solely because they haven't voted recently, while giving election administrators flexibility to remove voters based on State records.

As Stacey Abrams has said, if you don't go to a meeting for a while, do you lose your right to assemble? No, you don't. If you don't go to a church or a synagogue or a mosque for a while, do you lose your right to exercise your right to religion? No, you don't. You shouldn't lose your right to vote.

It would also prohibit partisan gerrymandering, this bill will, so that voters choose their elected officials, not the other way around.

Now, my home State of Minnesota is a great example of how this can all work. When you make it easier for people to vote, they will vote. I never see this as a partisan issue.

In election after election, our State leads the Nation in voter turnout because we have things like, now, no-excuse voting by mail or 46 days of early voting. Our bill doesn't go that far because we are setting minimum standards, but that is what we have in our State--and same-day voter registration.

And what has happened as a result? High voter turnout every time. Whom have we elected? Well, we have elected Democratic Governors like our Governor, Tim Walz; we have elected Republican Governors like Tim Pawlenty; and we have elected Independents like Jesse Ventura. But what have I noticed? People feel like they are part of the democracy because we make it easier for them to vote.

These policies that ensure Minnesotans continue to hold the coveted title of first in voter turnout--very close to the Presiding Officer's State of Colorado--are overseen by our secretary of state, Steve Simon, who continues to push for improvements in our elections.

The freedom to vote is fundamental to all our freedoms. Protecting it has not always been easy. Throughout our country's 245-year history, we have had to course correct and take action to ensure that our democracy for the people, by the people actually lives up to its ideals.

Voting is how Americans control their government and hold elected officials accountable. It was the founding principle of our country, and it has stood the test of wars, economic strife, and a global pandemic. But as we have seen in States like Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Montana, and most recently Texas, we are up against a coordinated attack aimed at limiting the freedom to vote. This demands a Federal response.

And the Constitution could not be clearer. It says right there that Congress can make or alter laws regarding Federal elections.

Just last week, legislation in Texas was signed into law that makes it harder to vote, and many States already are underway drawing new congressional maps. Without this bill, there will be nothing to limit many States from drawing gerrymandered maps that will distort the voices of Americans not just for 1 year but for the next decade.

The urgency for a Federal response is why, as chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, I have worked to ensure that voting rights are a priority. It is why one of our first hearings this year was on the For the People Act and why--and I see Reverend Warnock here--we took the Rules Committee on the road to Georgia in its first field hearing in 20 years.

And just last month, Senator Baldwin and I held a roundtable discussion in Wisconsin on what has been happening in that State and what would have been put into law, including only having one ballot dropoff box in the entire city of Milwaukee if the Governor hadn't stood in and vetoed it.

And we are not done yet because these discussions with voters are the most pressing testament that the threat to the freedom to vote is very real and affecting people of all walks of life across the country. We can't sit back idly and watch our democracy be threatened. As President Biden said in Philadelphia, the fight to protect the right to vote is the ``test of our time.''

Americans have fought and died to protect this freedom, and 56 years after the Voting Rights Act was passed by this Chamber and signed into law, we are still continuing this fight.

We have asked our colleagues from the other side of the aisle to join us on this bill. We have made many, many, many changes to this legislation in response to concerns they have raised, in response to concerns Senator Manchin raised, in response to concerns that secretaries of state have made across the country. We have adapted this bill to make it much easier to implement in rural areas, in small towns.

We are proud of this legislation. Yet what do we hear from the other side of the aisle? Well, over the last few months, one of their refrains which I find so amusing is they say this will somehow result in chaos. Truly?

Chaos is a 5-hour wait to vote in the Sun in Georgia without food or water. Chaos is purging eligible voters from voter rolls and prohibiting mail-in ballot drop boxes and having only one in the entirety of Harris County in Texas for 5 million people. Chaos is voters in Wisconsin waiting in line to vote for hours in the rain, wearing homemade face masks and plastic garbage bags. That angry mob on January 6 that came right into this Chamber, that was chaos.

You want to stop the chaos: Federal minimum voting standards. Telling extremists they can't spend millions on sham audits, that stops the chaos. Getting dark money out of our politics, that stops the chaos. And making sure that people have a voice by ending partisan gerrymandering, that stops the chaos.

So, once again, I urge my Republican colleagues to recognize the work being done in many of their own States to restrict the freedom of Americans to exercise their sacred right to vote. Our Nation was founded on the ideals of democracy, and as we have seen for ourselves in this very building, we cannot afford to take it for granted.

We have so much work to do. Voting rights reform, this bill, guaranteeing the freedom to vote, is about the salvation of our very democracy. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting the Freedom to Vote Act.

Mr. President, I see my colleagues. Senator Merkley, such a great leader on the For the People bill, and Senator Warnock, such a great leader, new in the Senate but already establishing himself across the country and in Georgia as a leader on voting rights, are both here.

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues: Senator Padilla, with your great experience as secretary of state and how that has assisted us in coming together on this bill; Senator Warnock, with the passion and firsthand experience you have in Georgia; Senator Kaine, for an extraordinary speech, wherein we all had to step back and think about our job description: to protect and defend the Constitution. It is not just ours on this side of the aisle; it is also our colleagues' on the other side of the aisle.

We have this special obligation to protect this democracy and to cherish it and to pass it on to the next generation. The way you do that fundamentally is by guaranteeing Americans the freedom to vote. That is all this bill is about--putting in place minimum national standards that we see in so many of our States but that, sadly, right now, are threatened in a number of those States for no other reason except--to quote Reverend Warnock--that some people don't want some people to vote. Our democracy is too important to let that happen.

With that, we are going to end our segment here, and we will be back to discuss this bill more next week.

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