Voting Rights Under Attack

Floor Speech

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Ms. UNDERWOOD. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding.

I rise today to urge the Senate to defend the American people from the ongoing assault on their sacred right to vote.

People of color are disproportionately impacted by the recent onslaught of attacks on this fundamental right by certain State legislatures and partisan litigators. This is only the latest salvo from a decades-long war on voting rights, a war that has always been and still is fueled by racism. But although people of color are the primary targets of these attacks, we are not the only casualties.

The right to vote is the foundation of any democracy. Without it, the United States would cease to be a government of, by, and for the people. Those are the stakes. This is a life-and-death issue for our country itself.

Earlier this year, I proudly voted with most though, unfortunately, not all of my colleagues to designate Juneteenth National Independence Day as a Federal holiday. With this vote, we recognized that America cannot truly be a free country until every American is free.

Freedom cannot be conditional on who you are, where you live, what you look like, how many hours you work, what language you speak, or what bus you ride. That is why every attack on voting rights cracks the foundation of our democracy. If we allow it to keep crumbling away chip by chip, soon, the whole structure will collapse.

Last week, Senate Democrats brought an urgently needed voting rights bill to the floor, where every single Republican voted to defeat it. Of course, this defeat was made possible by the filibuster, an undemocratic procedural weapon that has been wielded for a century and a half to block anti-lynching legislation, civil rights, and voting rights.

Americans are tired of seeing their rights sacrificed on the altar of the filibuster. Every Senator faces a choice about what is more important to protect, an antiquated procedural rule or our representative democracy.

I urge my colleagues in the Senate to prioritize our democracy and ensure access to the ballot box is not undermined by restrictive State laws. A democracy for some is not a democracy for all.

Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, how much time do I have left?

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