Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I want to thank the majority leader for his encouraging and kind words and especially thank my friend and former chair of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, for inviting other colleagues to come to the floor to speak in support of the right to vote.

Time and again in history, we have asked men and women to stand and risk their lives and, in fact, give their lives for the most fundamental premise of our democracy: the right to vote. They have fought. They have bled. They have died for that right.

Now it is under attack again--not from any foreign source. Over the past few years, our Nation has witnessed the most heavily coordinated assault on the right to vote in modern memory. Since the start of 2021, Republican legislators throughout the country have introduced over 425 pieces of legislation with provisions to make it more difficult for Americans to vote. Thirty-three of these laws were actually enacted in 19 States. Some of these laws have set new limits on voting by mail; others cut hours for polling locations. Each of these proposals is designed to achieve the same outcome: create barriers for Americans when it comes to the ballot box.

One of the strongest champions of democracy in American history was my old friend and colleague John Lewis of Georgia. Days before his passing, John wrote: ``Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.''

It is now this generation's turn to act, John, because nothing less than the survival of America's democracy is at stake.

At a moment when lawmakers across the country are railing around the Big Lie to strip away our constitutional rights, we in this Senate must have the courage to step up and protect those rights. If the supporters of the former President of the United States are going to defame our democracy, we have to fight to defend it. We can begin by reinvigorating one of the most important pieces of legislation in modern American history: the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I am sure there are folks who are watching this at home, saying: Wait a minute. How can a piece of legislation signed into law more than 50 years ago be the solution to today's challenge to democracy?

That is because over the past several years, there has been a sustained effort to chip away at the protections guaranteed to every American under that Voting Rights Act.

For instance, in 2013, the Supreme Court issued the decision in Shelby County v. Holder, essentially nullifying a key provision in the Voting Rights Act, section 5. Prior to the Court's ruling in Shelby, section 5 required that localities with a track record of disenfranchising voters of color through tactics as brutal as poll taxes and literacy tests would have to seek Federal approval for changes they make in their voting rules. This requirement is known as preclearance, and it could have prevented many of the restrictive voting provisions being enacted in States like Georgia and Texas today.

Just this past summer, the Supreme Court weakened another section of the Voting Rights Act with its decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.

With these wrongful rulings, the Supreme Court has fueled State-led efforts to suppress voters, particularly voters of color. In fact, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent to Brnovich that ``in the last decade, this Court has treated no statute worse'' than the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It is time for Congress to uphold our constitutional obligation and restore the Voting Rights Act to its full potential. That is why we join together today to introduce a bill that would not only restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act but strengthen them.

Tomorrow, we will hold a hearing on this critical legislation in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is called the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. By all means, passing this law should be a bipartisan endeavor. Historically, it always was. It wasn't until very recently that the Republicans--the party of Abraham Lincoln--decided that they would no longer join in our effort to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. It wasn't that long ago that it was bipartisan and passed easily. The last time Congress voted to do so, in fact, the Republican minority leader, Senator McConnell, came to the floor and said: ``This is a piece of legislation which has worked.''

Well, let's make sure we keep it working for America. In our Nation, there is no freedom more fundamental than the right to vote, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act will help ensure that every American can exercise that right that he famously called the ``precious, almost sacred'' right.

I want to thank Senator Leahy, Senator Blumenthal, and my colleague Senator Warnock for joining us on the floor and a number of our colleagues for the collaboration and hard work on preparing this legislation for introduction and our House colleagues who passed their version of the bill earlier this summer.

I particularly want to thank the man for whom this bill is named. I was honored to count him as a friend--even more when he came in on more than one occasion at my invitation to campaign in the State of Illinois. I was honored to join him on a Sunday morning walk, which I will never forget, over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, John and I talking about that moment in history. It is something I will treasure for a lifetime.

We, in his name, need to honor him and to honor the principles that he gave his life for, making certain that everyone has an opportunity to help us build a beloved community.

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