Election Security
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, later today, the Senate will vote on the latest power grab by our friends across the aisle, a bill that is called the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021.
The most important reason to vote against this legislation is that it is clearly unconstitutional.
I know it is unusual for Members of the legislative branch to make statements like that, but we do take an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, and I think it is part of our responsibility to assess the constitutionality of legislation that is being proposed and to make a judgment on whether it is constitutional or not.
One reason why I say that is because the Supreme Court has made very clear that it is within the authority of the States to conduct elections, and that those elections must be run subject to the Voting Rights Act; but that is section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which applies across the entire country.
One of the reasons we find ourselves in this position today is because, in 2006, our Democratic colleagues proposed an extension of the Voting Rights Act but did not update the formula by which covered States were being determined. In other words, in 2006, they did not reflect the huge improvement and advances made in minority voting strength since 1965.
I think you could say without fear of contradiction that the Voting Rights Act is one of the most important and most successful pieces of legislation ever passed in this country. The good news is that it has worked exactly as Congress had hoped. So our colleagues are really trying to pass an unconstitutional law, which would require States to change their voting rules to ask permission of the Biden Justice Department before they do so.
As Chief Justice Roberts laid out in the Shelby County case, that is a departure from the norm, to be sure, and can only be justified to remedy past discrimination. But if you look at the current numbers of minority voting strength around the country, you see minorities voting at historically high numbers and even in many instances exceeding that of the majority. So this is really a piece of legislation that is being sold under false pretenses.
Based on the way our Democratic colleagues talk about the state of voting rights in America, you would think the Supreme Court had struck down the Voting Rights Act. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who just spoke, the Democratic whip, described the current law as an ``insidious effort to suppress the right of voters of color.''
The majority leader, Senator Schumer, recently said that the right to vote was ``under attack in ways we have not seen in generations.''
And the Speaker of the House has said ``voting rights are under relentless attack.''
But the facts do not align with this doom and gloom picture of America. In 2020, roughly two-thirds of all eligible voters cast a ballot. In Texas, 66 percent of registered voters cast a ballot, 11.3 million voters. Compared to 2016, 17 million more people voted in 2020. This includes a higher turnout in Black, White, Hispanic, and Asian- American communities.
When Congress passed the Voting Rights Act back in 1965, the goal-- the laudable goal, which we all share--was to eliminate discriminatory practices, and there is no question that it ultimately has worked.
In 2012, for the first time on record, the turnout among Black voters was higher than that of White voters--higher. And in 2012, Hispanic and Asian voters turned out at the highest rate on record.
So, clearly, thankfully, we have come a long way since 1965. And despite what Democrats would have you believe, the Voting Rights Act is alive and well and continues to protect minority Americans from discrimination.
Even though the facts don't align with the Democrats' sky-is-falling depiction of voting rights in America, that hasn't stopped them from pushing this false narrative of widespread voter suppression. As our colleagues have demonstrated over the past few years, they have one tried-and-true strategy: if you can't win the game, change the rules.
They failed to stop conservative nominees from reaching the Supreme Court, so their solution is to pack the Supreme Court with additional Justices--just add more liberal Justices. They are uninterested in bipartisanship, so they proposed ending the legislative filibuster. We have heard that time and time again. The Democratic whip just talked about the filibuster. And since they failed to secure a mandate in Congress, they want to forever change the rules of America's elections to rig the game in their favor.
We have seen a steady stream of bills designed by our Democratic colleagues to achieve this end. This current bill, I think, is about the third iteration. First came the so-called For the People Act.
Who could be against the For the People Act?
It was so unpopular among Democrats that they had to go back to the drawing board and rewrite it. When the updated version came to the floor for a Senate vote, it went down with bipartisan opposition. So they came back from their drawing board once again, giving their legislation a new and different name: the Freedom to Vote Act.
They stripped out some of the most egregious provisions, but not nearly enough to change the fate of this partisan bill; and like its predecessor, it failed to pass the Senate.
But now our Democratic colleagues, they really do have the answer: a bill that perverts the cause of voting rights to give the Democratic Party unprecedented control over America's elections.
At the heart of this legislation is the preclearance regime. In other words, the States would have to ask the Federal Government: Can we pass laws in our State?
And it would be up to the Biden Justice Department and Merrick Garland to say yes or no.
Now, back in 1965, the original Voting Rights Act did have a preclearance requirement, but it is clear that, according to the Supreme Court, that was only justified based on a history of past discrimination, which has now been essentially eradicated, if you believe the numbers of minority voters who are casting their ballots now.
So think about the children's game, ``Mother, may I?'' All the kids line up on one side of the room except one who stands on the other side and acts like the mother. Before anyone can move forward, they have to ask, ``Mother, may I?'' Sometimes the mother says ``yes, you may,'' and sometimes she says ``no, you may not.'' Sometimes she even orders the children to take a step backward.
That is eventually what Democrats are proposing in this legislation, to make the Biden Justice Department the mother, and the States have to ask, ``Mother, may I?'' before they could even fulfill their constitutional responsibilities.
In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down the portion of the law that set the formula for when a State or local jurisdiction would have to seek preclearance. But, to be clear--and you can't tell this from the rhetoric on the left--the Court did not strike down the Voting Rights Act in its entirety; just the formula that determined which States would be covered. Because, as the Supreme Court said, that formula had to reflect current conditions, and, instead, Congress chose not to update the formula from 1965. That was section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which the Supreme Court of the United States held unconstitutional.
Chief Justice Roberts, in his opinion, speaking of the formula in that legislation, said: `` . . . history did not end in 1965.''
Well, here's an example. The formula set in 1965 required States to receive preclearance if they had any ``test or device'' that restricts voting. That would include things like literacy tests or subjective determinations of good moral character, which are, thankfully, nowhere to be found today.
Democrats have tried to market this bill as a response to the Supreme Court's decision, but the truth is this legislation goes far beyond updating that outdated formula.
It would make the formula so broad that virtually every State would have to ask of the Biden Justice Department, ``Mother, may I?'' before making any changes in their election laws. So if a county or municipal utility district or the State itself wanted to do something as simple as clean up voter rolls and remove the names of dead people, they would have to ask the Federal Government and the Biden Justice Department for permission to do so.
Well, this is the same organization--the Biden Justice Department-- that recently took aggressive actions to discourage parents from exercising their constitutional right to speak out at local school board meetings.
Clearly, we don't need to vest States' authorities in the hands of these unanswerable bureaucrats who are willing to abuse their power to discourage parents from exercising their constitutional rights.
Based on this broad formula, you would think there has been countless unenforced instances of voter discrimination. If Democrats are willing to go this far to stop discrimination, it must be a widespread problem, right?
Wrong.
The Justice Department, as I said, retains the right to enforce section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which applies to the entire United States, and it prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.
During the entire 8 years of the Obama administration, the Justice Department only filed four--four--enforcement cases under section 2.
Well, if you think that discrimination against minority voters is rampant, don't you think you would see more than four enforcement actions by the Obama administration over an 8-year period of time?
Well, the power grab doesn't stop there.
This legislation also gives the Department of Justice veto power over State voter ID laws. Now, we all know you have to show a photo ID to open up a bank account; buy tobacco, alcohol; get married; board a plane; and do countless other things in our country. But our Democratic colleagues have this thing about requiring voter ID to vote, to make sure that you are actually qualified and authorized to cast a ballot.
The American people overwhelmingly support voter ID laws. Four in five people believe voters should be required to show a voter ID in order to cast a ballot. But this legislation would override the will of 80 percent of Americans and allow the Justice Department to veto those laws for basically any reason that they choose.
In so many ways, this legislation is a solution in search of a problem. It interferes--and I would say it usurps--the States' constitutional authority to manage their own elections and set their own congressional districts.
You would have to ask ``Mother, may I?'' of the Biden Justice Department to redo any redistricting, which is currently underway now, in advance.
And it makes it virtually impossible for the States to take actions to prevent fraud, essentially encouraging them to wait for large-scale voter fraud before they can take any action. And it arms the Department of Justice with new powers that will surely be used against those of the Democratic Party.
We are still seeing the consequences of the Justice Department's blatant attack on concerned parents in our schools. Why on Earth would we hand a politically motivated Department even more power to abuse, especially when that power could shape the result of our elections?
From city councils and school boards, all the way up to the President of the United States, the American people have a right--and I would argue a duty--to make their voices heard. A ``government of the people, by the people, for the people''--as Abraham Lincoln phrased it--is only possible if all Americans are free to participate in public life.
Despite what the radical left might lead you to believe, there is no nationwide assault on minority voting rights. If there were, every single person in this building would be lined up together, arm's length, to fight against it.
As I said before, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is one of the most important laws in modern American history, and it has actually worked, and it continues to protect all persons of color from any sort of discrimination when it comes to their right to cast their ballot.
This bill isn't about supporting disenfranchised voters, though, or fighting voter suppression. This is a politically motivated power grab that would allow Democrats to determine and Washington to determine how elections in Texas would run.
The narrative of widespread voter suppression is nothing but a scare tactic designed to support a political outcome.
Republicans have blocked every iteration of this partisan power grab so far, and we will stand together to oppose this one as well at the next vote.
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