Freedom to Vote Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNOCK. Mr. President, I am proud to stand on the Senate floor today with my colleagues Senator Klobuchar and Senator Merkley in support of the new Freedom to Vote Act that we just introduced. I want to talk about why it is so important, so urgent that Congress act right now to protect the sacred right to vote that is under assault across our Nation, but first I want to thank my friends who worked with me to get us to this point: Senator Klobuchar, who has worked on this issue for so long; Senator Merkley also; Senator Manchin; and Senators Schumer, Padilla, Kaine, King, and Tester. Our work is a testament to Democrats' commitment to protecting access to the ballot box for every eligible voter.

I think it is important to remind us that we were blocked from debating this issue in June. It bears repeating so that the American people understand that that is what got stopped in June--not the actual bill but the ability to debate the bill on the Senate floor. But I am proud that our group was able to come together. We decided that we were not about to let this fight to protect voting rights die in this Congress.

Passing voting rights is the most important thing we can do in this Congress because if we are going to lengthen and strengthen the cords of our democracy, that won't just happen. We will have to work for it. We will have to fight for it. We will have to stand up for it. And that is what we intend to do.

That is why we worked on this bill through the negotiations on the bipartisan infrastructure deal. That work is very important. I have often said regarding our infrastructure work that America needs a home improvement project; that that work is not only an infrastructure bill, it is a jobs bill desperately needed. We have to build back better and create infrastructure so that families can thrive, so that workers can be engaged in the work that grows our economy, creates more jobs. But even while that work was going forward during the August recess, we were focused on writing this bill.

The Freedom to Vote Act will improve access to the ballot for all eligible Americans by setting national standards for absentee voting, early voting, and in-person voting. It will make sure that the drop box is available for workers. It will enable the work that is so necessary to strengthen our democracy.

This bill will end partisan gerrymandering--yet another way in which the voices of ordinary people are squeezed out of their democracy--and it will advance commonsense reforms to secure our elections.

I am especially proud that this bill specifically addresses the wave of voter suppression laws we have seen take root in my home State of Georgia and all across this country since January. What kind of Congress would we be if we did not respond to all of these voter suppression bills that are mushrooming all over the country; a violent insurrection on this very Capitol, driven by the Big Lie, metastasized into a kind of voter suppression cancer all across the body politic?

This is our moment, and this is the work that we must do. So I am proud that this bill includes provisions from my Preventing Election Subversion Act that will prevent what we are seeing in places like Fulton County, GA, right now, where partisan actors will interfere with the work of local officials, taking over the election, subverting the will of the people even while the votes are still being cast.

It will also prevent a neighbor from leveraging baseless challenges to a voter's ability to cast a ballot and have it counted. Imagine that. And that is one of the provisions in SB 202 down in Georgia. Your neighbor can decide to challenge countless numbers of people and their right and legitimacy in casting their ballots--tie up the whole system with these kinds of baseless accusations. How will it be possible to certify any election?

Simply put, the Freedom to Vote Act is all about securing our elections and making the ballot box accessible so that every eligible American can exercise that basic right, the right to vote, no matter where they live.

As we do this work, as challenging as it is, as disappointing as it was to have our beloved colleagues on the other side of the aisle block debate, I am not discouraged in this moment. I am encouraged by the voices and the legacy of those who committed to the idea of freedom.

John Lewis was my parishioner, and although he has transitioned to eternity, his advice still echoes in the Halls of this Congress.

Every Member of this Chamber ought to be able to get behind voting rights. It is the only reason we are here in the first place. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will cosponsor and support the Freedom to Vote Act.

I look forward to talking with Democrats and Republicans about how we can get this done while we continue working on economic and infrastructure packages, because we have to walk and chew gum at the same time. We have to repair our country's infrastructure, but we also have to protect and repair the infrastructure of our democracy. It is not either/or; it is both/and.

We have always had infrastructure. We have always had roads and streets--important. We have always had bridges. John Lewis walked across a bridge in order to repair the infrastructure of our democracy, a bridge to the future.

I know that some of my friends on the other side of the aisle are already saying that they are not going to support this bill, but in the past, I remind them, voting rights legislation has passed out of this Chamber with strong bipartisan support.

I hope that this day will be no different. I say, at least give this bill a chance. Come, let us reason together. Let's talk about it. Let's have the voting rights discussion that we didn't have in June. It is not too late. Let's have the discussion that the American people deserve. Let's have an open debate and input from both sides here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. That is why we were sent here.

There is a lot for my Republican friends to like in this bill. My Democratic colleagues and I stand ready to hear what you don't like. Together, we can try to find common ground. I hope my Republican friends will give this bill fair consideration and that we can get bipartisan support to get it over the finish line.

Mr. President, as I close, I want to remind all of us that the only reason we are here in this Chamber at all is because somebody voted for us. Voting rights is not just some other issue alongside other issues. It gets to the heart of who we are in the first place--a democracy. We will always disagree about a whole range of issues, but after politicians have argued their case about infrastructure, about taxes, about healthcare, about national security, the most powerful words ever uttered in a democracy are ``the people have spoken.'' Shame on us if we allow the people's voices to be silenced in this Chamber.

Voting rights are preservative of all other rights, and right now the right to vote is under attack. Our democracy is in a 9-1-1 emergency, and we must act now.

I know that for those who have been in this body for a while, there is a sense in which you know you offer up proposals and they don't always make it and you live and you fight another day.

When I look at what is going on across our country, I think that if we don't address what is happening right now, we will cross a Rubicon that imperils our democracy for years to come.

I am not about to sit here silently and allow that to happen. Too many people died. Too much blood was shed. Too many sacrifices were made. Too much is at stake, and it is beneath the legacy of the greatest deliberative body on the planet to refuse to even have a debate about voting rights.

I hope that my beloved colleagues on the other side of the aisle will come and reason together. Let's pass this out of this Chamber with strong support. We got some things done this year, but I believe that if we don't pass voting rights, history will rightly judge us harshly.

Folks who sent us here are counting on us. History is waiting on us. Our children are watching us. And the great cloud of witnesses--John Lewis; a white woman named Viola Liuzzo, who died fighting for voting rights; Abraham Joshua Heschel; Medgar Evers--a great cloud of witnesses are urging us on to march toward the mark of the High Calling, the High Calling about our democratic ideals, a nation where every voice is heard and every vote counts.

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