Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to H.R. Nasa Enhanced Use Leasing Extension Act of 2021
Floor Speech
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 868 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 868
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 5746) to amend title 51, United States Code, to extend the authority of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to enter into leases of non-excess property of the Administration, with the Senate amendment thereto, and to consider in the House, without intervention of any point of order, a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on House Administration or her designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment with an amendment consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 117-28. The Senate amendment and the motion shall be considered as read. The motion shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on House Administration or their respective designees. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption without intervening motion.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Fischbach), my good friend, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, today the Committee on Rules met and reported a rule, House Resolution 868, providing for consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 5746.
The rule makes in order a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on House Administration or her designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment with an amendment consisting of the text of the Freedom to Vote, John R. Lewis Act. The rule provides 1 hour of debate on the motion equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on House Administration or their designees.
Madam Speaker, this is about more than a bill, and it is about more than a process. This is a rescue mission to save American democracy. Because right now, we are in the midst of the most significant period of voter suppression in recent history.
All across the country, in service to a lie started by the former President and spread by some in this very body, State legislatures are moving to make it harder for people to cast their ballot. Polling places are being closed so the nearest location is now miles and miles away. Early voting times are being slashed during this global pandemic, so it is now too unsafe for some people to vote. Purges of voting rolls, including faulty voter purges, are becoming more likely and more common. And strict voter ID laws are being used to disenfranchise more and more people from casting their ballots.
Madam Speaker, in one State, it has even become illegal to provide voters waiting in line with food and water. That is why we are here today, because some believe that the only way for them to win is to rig an election. This is voter nullification pure and simple.
Now, many on the other side want us to turn a blind eye to all of this, just like they turned a blind eye to the insurrection and the creeping authoritarianism. Well, I am not willing to look away. People fought and died for the freedom to vote in this country. We served with someone who nearly gave his life for the right to vote--Congressman John Lewis.
He was beaten by mobs using baseball bats and chains, attacked by racist members of the KKK, and even thrown in jail. But still, still he fought for the freedom to vote. If he was willing to withstand all that to do what is right, then certainly we can cast a vote to defend our democracy.
John once said, ``Change often takes time. It rarely happens all at once. In the movement, we didn't know how history would play itself out. When we were getting arrested or waiting in jail or standing in unmovable lines on the courthouse steps, we didn't know what would happen, but we knew it had to happen.''
Madam Speaker, I don't know what will happen in the Senate, but I know that this vote has to happen, because the freedom to vote is under assault. We have a system today that undermines the civil rights of the young, the poor, and those who don't look like me. It is a system that has allowed Presidents to win elections despite losing the popular vote. It is a system that has allowed politicians to gerrymander their way into office. And it is a system that gives the 26 least popular States, representing just 17 percent of the country, the chance to derail legislation that the vast majority of Americans support.
Madam Speaker, that is the reality of the Senate filibuster. And make no mistake, despite the claims by some, the filibuster is not sacrosanct. It has been changed over 161 times in the last five decades. And nowhere--nowhere--does it appear in the Constitution of the United States.
Just recently, a bipartisan group of Senators came together to advance a filibuster carveout to raise the debt ceiling. Now, I am glad that they did. That was the right thing to do. A default would have been catastrophic for our economy. Certainly, allowing a carveout for voting rights is also the right thing to do.
We need to pass the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act to ensure that every American has the ability to make their voice and vote heard in our democracy. And I wish we could get a majority of Republicans to support voting rights. You know, they used to. The Voting Rights Act was reauthorized four times with overwhelming bipartisan support, including in 2006 under the Presidency of Republican George W. Bush.
But something has changed. This isn't your grandfather's Republican Party anymore. It is a party defined by the big lie, wild conspiracy theories, and winning elections by trying to suppress the vote. To set a standard that we must act on this bill or that the Senate should act on filibuster reform only if Republicans come along is a fool's errand.
Madam Speaker, on what planet are the people causing the problem going to help solve it?
Now, I would rather be on the side of John Lewis than cast my lot with the big lie. I would rather go it alone to defend our democracy than do nothing together. And yes, I would rather lose an election than win by rigging the outcome. This fight may not be new but it has never been more urgent.
Madam Speaker, history is watching. And this moment is bigger than any of us. With the future of our democracy in the balance, I pray that my colleagues join me in saying the same and supporting this rule and the underlying measure.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, today is my birthday, and I could not think of a better gift for the American people.
In the last 24 hours, we found that five States--Republicans--decided to put in false certifications to determine that Trump actually won the November 2020 election. In a bill in Texas that was passed after the big lie, they allowed the legislature to overturn a duly held election.
Do you not think there is a siege on the rightful vote of Americans no matter who they are, of people of color and young people?
I am so happy that we decided to move forward on the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act that will stop the detrimental gerrymandering that wants to eliminate Members of color.
It is time now that the relic of the filibuster no longer promotes discrimination and racism but frankly that we move on protecting democracy, on cradling democracy, on recognizing that we are patriots who stand to support the idea of the Constitution.
Madam Speaker, I support this rule because the Constitution rules and the American people deserve the right to vote.
Madam Speaker, as Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Homeland Security, and Terrorism, and a senior member of the Homeland Security, and Budget Committees, I rise in strong support of the rule governing debate for the Senate Amendment to H.R. 5746, the ``Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.''
We are here tonight because we must act, and this legislation provides the tools to address discriminatory practices and seeks to protect all Americans' right to vote.
On August 6, 1965, in the Rotunda of the Capitol, President Johnson addressed the nation before signing the Voting Rights Act--considered the most effective civil rights statute ever enacted by Congress:
``The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.''
This bill is the result of tireless work and compromise by my colleagues in the House and my colleagues in the Senate.
The signing of the Voting Rights Act came after, in that same year, in Selma, Alabama, hundreds of heroic souls risked their lives for freedom and to secure the right to vote for all Americans by their participation in marches for voting rights on ``Bloody Sunday,'' ``Turnaround Tuesday,'' or the final, completed march from Selma to Montgomery.
Those ``foot soldiers'' of Selma, brave and determined men and women, boys and girls, persons of all races and creeds, loved their country so much that they were willing to risk their lives to make it better, to bring it even closer to its founding ideals.
The foot soldiers marched because they believed that all persons have dignity and the right to equal treatment under the law, and in the making of the laws, which is the fundamental essence of the right to vote.
On that day, Sunday, March 7, 1965, more than 600 civil rights demonstrators, including our beloved former colleague, the late Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, were brutally attacked by state and local police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge as they marched from Selma to Montgomery in support of the right to vote.
``Bloody Sunday'' was a defining moment in American history because it crystallized for the nation the necessity of enacting a strong and effective federal law to protect the right to vote of every American.
However, since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the right to vote has been under constant assault.
The Voting Rights Act was enacted at a time when many African Americans in southern states had been denied the right to vote, and when attempting to register, organize, or even assist others in their attempt to register to vote meant risking their jobs, homes, and racial violence.
Prior to the enactment of the VRA, litigation initiated under the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 failed to eliminate discrimination in voting because jurisdictions simply shifted to different tactics in order to disenfranchise African Americans.
Nearly fifty-seven years later, we face another turning point in the life of the nation and for the dignity of men and women and the destiny of democracy.
Although the Supreme Court has described the right to vote as the one right that is preservative of all others, this ``powerful instrument that can break down the walls of injustice'' faces grave threats.
The threat stems from the decision issued in June 2013 by the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 193 (2013), which invalidated Section 4(b) of the VRA, and paralyzed the application of the VRA's Section 5 preclearance requirements.
According to the Supreme Court majority, the reason for striking down Section 4(b) was that ``times change.''
Now, the Court was right; times have changed.
But what the Court did not fully appreciate is that the positive changes it cited are due almost entirely to the existence and vigorous enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, and that is why the Voting Rights Act is still needed.
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated in Shelby County v. Holder, ``[t]hrowing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.''
The current Supreme Court majority has simply never understood, or refuses to accept, the fundamental importance of the right to vote, free of discriminatory hurdles and obstacles.
In fact, were it not for the 24th Amendment, I venture to say that this conservative majority on the Court would subject poll taxes and literacy tests to the review standard enunciated in Brnovich v. DNC.
Protecting voting rights and combating voter suppression schemes are two of the critical challenges facing our great democracy.
Without safeguards to ensure that all citizens have equal access to the polls, more injustices are likely to occur and the voices of millions silenced.
And this is exactly what we have seen over this past year.
The polarization of Americans is ever increasing, as seen during the 2020 election through tactics meant to impede the right of certain Americans to vote, such as the removal of mailboxes and the closing of postal stations in order to impede mail-in voting.
After the former president was soundly defeated at the ballot box in what experts unanimously proclaim was the most secure election in history, still the former president and his cronies propagated the Big Lie that the election was illegitimate because it was rife with fraud.
The former president persisted in this specious claim even though, despite ample opportunities to do so, they produced not a scintilla of evidence to persuade any of the 61 state and federal courts that entertained the claims.
But to this has been added reactionary state laws passed or introduced to suppress, abridge, restrict, or deny the right to vote of millions of eligible Americans, particularly persons of color, young persons and persons with disabilities, and working parents, precisely the constellation of persons whose votes determined the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, according to the Brennan Center For Justice, between January 1 and July 14, 2021, at least 18 states enacted 30 laws that restrict access to the vote, some making mail voting and early voting more difficult, others imposing harsher voter ID requirements, and making faulty voter purges more likely.
In total, more than 400 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions.
My home state of Texas is ground zero for this desperate effort to hold back an American future led by the ascendant coalition of young, racially diverse and all other tolerant, imaginative, and innovative voters who became energized and inspired by Barack Obama in 2008 and the belief in a new and just America.
To combat not their ideas but instead their increasing numbers, the Republican legislature and Governor of Texas passed and signed into law SB1, which:
Bans drive-thru voting, 24-hour voting, and the distribution of mailin ballot applications;
imposes new and extraneous ID requirements for voting by mail;
authorizing ``free movement'' to partisan poll watchers, effectively turning them into vote suppression vigilantes;
requires monthly checks of voting rolls to facilitate purging unwanted voters; and
imposes onerous new rules for voter assistance.
All of this is more than enough to sound the warning bell that we are now engaged, as President Lincoln observed at Gettysburg, in a great contest testing the proposition that this nation, or any nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal, can long endure.
This is the present crisis in which we find ourselves and it indeed is soul trying.
But as Thomas Paine wrote on Christmas Eve in 1776:
``The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.''
The work for civil rights and voting rights involved tens of thousands of individuals who fought to correct the course of the nation by setting it on a path of equal rights and justice for all.
The efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Hosea Williams, Coretta Scott King, and John Robert Lewis, among others, as well as the thousands of foot soldiers in the civil rights movement succeeded in waking the nation to the idea that change was needed.
The result of their work was the establishment of protections that allowed voters of every race, creed, color, and political belief to cast ballots free of interference or threat.
The blood spilled during these difficult times is not forgotten by the communities that saw and experienced these battles, which is why laws like Texas SB1 cannot go unanswered by the United States House of Representatives and Senate.
To meet the challenge we have been called upon to face and overcome, what is needed is for men and women of courage, conscience, and conviction to step forward and come to the aid of their country by passing the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act to strengthen the foundation of our democracy upon which all else depends, including the important necessary investments to Build Back Better and mitigate the effects of Climate Change.
I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule governing debate of Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am not going to be lectured about respect for this institution by anybody who after a violent attack against this Capitol, the people who work here, this democracy--after a violent attack, them then coming to this House floor and voting to overturn, to nullify the will of the American people with no basis of fact at all to do that. I will not be lectured by anybody who would do such a thing. Quite frankly, I think it is unconscionable.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished Speaker of the House.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me just remind my colleagues that voter suppression takes many forms. Sometimes it is Republican State legislatures making it more difficult for people to vote. Sometimes it is members of bodies like this that, on one hand, brag about the record turnout in the last election but have been working overtime to try to nullify and to try to disqualify the votes of the people of this country. It is stunning.
Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a July 2, 2021, U.S. News and World Report article titled ``Report: Republican-Led State Legislatures Pass Dozens of Restrictive Voting Laws in 2021.'' [From U.S. News, July 2, 2021] Report: Republican-Led State Legislatures Pass Dozens of Restrictive Voting Laws in 2021 (By Horus Alas) States with Republican legislatures have passed waves of new laws making it harder for constituents to vote in response to the 2020 election, experts say
The Supreme Court issued a new ruling on Thursday that upheld two Arizona laws restricting organizations' ability to collect mail-in ballots as well as invalidating ballots cast in the wrong precinct. Critics say the court's decision further erodes landmark voting protections codified by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The court's ruling follows a report finding that as of mid- June, 17 states had passed 28 laws making it harder for constituents to vote in 2021, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law. The report notes that the last year a similar number of laws passed restricting access to the ballot was 2011--when 14 states had enacted 19 such measures by October.
Eliza Sweren-Becker, a voting rights and elections counsel at the Brennan Center, called the new wave of voting laws ``an unprecedented assault on voting rights'' as well as ``a voter suppression effort we haven't seen since the likes of Jim Crow.''
The nation's high court previously gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, when Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a majority opinion arguing that jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting should no longer be subject to oversight from the Department of Justice before effecting changes to their voting laws.
The Brennan Center report attributes this year's batch of restrictive voting laws to ``racist voter fraud allegations behind the Big Lie (a reference to former President Donald Trump's repeated false claims of a rigged election) and a desire to prevent future elections from achieving the historic turnout seen in 2020.''
Commenting on the former president's claims of mass voter fraud, Sweren-Becker says, ``We know that's false, but we have officials at the state level passing these laws making it harder for people to vote.''
Some of the specific provisions in these laws that can have a negative impact on voter turnout according to the Brennan Center include restrictions on voting by mail--some 63.9 million ballots had been sent as of Election Day 2020, data from the U.S. Elections Project indicated--challenges to in- person voting, and limitations on the number of mail ballot drop boxes in precincts.
According to Sweren-Becker, Republican lawmakers in state legislatures across the country are capitalizing on Trump's repeated claims of voter fraud to pass these measures.
``What is very clear is that we had a very successful election last year with historic turnout that was certified as one of the safest, most secure elections,'' she says. ``And we are hearing (about claims of voter fraud) as pretextual motives .... These laws are being enacted in Republican-controlled legislatures, in many cases on purely party-line votes.''
States differ in their structuring of these laws as well.
The report specifically calls out Florida, Georgia and Iowa for passing comprehensive omnibus bills that ``undertake a full-fledged assault on voting.'' In contrast, certain states including Arkansas and Montana have passed piecemeal voting restrictions through four separate bills each.
Sweren-Becker says advocates are considering two primary avenues to challenge some of these new voting laws: court litigation and federal voting reform legislation.
``Litigation is happening already, in states like Georgia, Iowa, Florida. But that is a piecemeal state-by-state approach,'' she says. ``And that's why a federal policy like the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act are so necessary because they will be applicable to people across the country.''
As of mid-June, Senate Democrats were still wrangling the necessary votes to pass either of these voting rights measures in the face of expected unified Republican opposition.
But even as some states face litigation for measures they've passed, others still have active legislative sessions where observers worry that more voting restriction measures may follow.
Sweren-Becker says voting rights advocates should focus on pressuring state lawmakers in Pennsylvania--a state with a Republican-controlled legislature that adjourns in December-- and Texas, where a special session will begin July 8, after Democrats walked out on a vote for a bill that would increase vote by mail restrictions and limit early voting hours at the end of the regular session.
Despite outcry from Democrats, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has struck a defiant tone on his state's omnibus voting measure, SB7. In response to a tweet from the Texas Attorney General detailing the booking of a suspect charged with voter fraud, Abbott wrote: ``Voter fraud is real and Texas will prosecute it whenever and wherever it happens. We will continue to make it easy to vote but hard to cheat.''
Sweren-Becker says the frenetic pace of this year's restrictive voting bills--the Brennan Center's report noted 61 bills with restrictive provisions continuing to move through 18 state legislatures as of June 21--makes it ``essential to pass federal democracy reform that ensures that people can freely and safely cast their ballots.''
And while these bills' language tends to omit race, Sweren- Becker says that several of their provisions do end up targeting access to the ballot for voters of color.
She notes ``the policy in the Texas bill that banned early voting hours during the Sunday before Election Day, which very clearly targets souls to the polls efforts that are clearly organized by Black churches,'' as well as increased challenges to voting by mail, ``after a wave of increased mail voting last year, and particularly by voters of color and young voters.''
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, one voting rights expert said in this piece that we are in the midst of ``a voter suppression effort we haven't seen since the likes of Jim Crow.''
To suggest that this isn't happening is to ignore reality.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a December 24, 2021 Guardian Article entitled ``Report Shows the Extent of Republican Efforts to Sabotage Democracy.'' [From The Guardian, Dec, 24, 2021]
Report Shows the Extent of Republican Efforts To Sabotage Democracy
The Republican assault on free and fair elections instigated by Donald Trump is gathering pace, with efforts to sabotage the normal workings of American democracy sweeping state legislatures across the US.
A year that began with the violent insurrection at the US Capitol is ending with an unprecedented push to politicize, criminalize or in other ways subvert the nonpartisan administration of elections. A year-end report from pro- democracy groups identifies no fewer than 262 bills introduced in 41 states that hijack the election process.
Of those, 32 bills have become law in 17 states.
The largest number of bills is concentrated in precisely those states that became the focus of Trump's Stop the Steal campaign to block the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. Arizona, where Trump supporters insisted on an ``audit'' to challenge Biden's victory in the state, has introduced 20 subversion bills, and Georgia where Trump attempted to browbeat the top election official to find extra votes for him has introduced 15 bills.
Texas, whose ultra-right Republican group has made the state the ground zero of voter suppression and election interference, has introduced as many as 59 bills.
``We're seeing an effort to hijack elections in this country, and ultimately, to take power away from the American people. If we don't want politicians deciding our elections, we all need to start paying attention,'' said Joanna Lydgate, CEO of the States United Democracy Center which is one of the three groups behind the report. Protect Democracy and Law Forward also participated.
One of the key ways that Trump-inspired state lawmakers have tried to sabotage future elections is by changing the rules to give legislatures control over vote counts. In Pennsylvania, a bill passed in the wake of Trump's defeat that sought to rewrite the state's election law was vetoed by Democratic governor Tom Wolf.
Now hard-right lawmakers are trying to bypass Wolf's veto power by proposing a constitutional amendment that would give the legislature the power to overrule the state's chief elections officer and create a permanent audit of election counts subject to its own will.
In several states, nonpartisan election officials who for years have administered ballots impartially are being replaced by hyper-partisan conspiracy theorists and advocates of Trump's false claims that the election was rigged. In Michigan, county Republican groups in eight of the 11 largest counties have systematically replaced professional administration officials with ``stop the steal'' extremists.
Several secretaries of state, the top election officials responsible for presidential election counts, are being challenged by extreme Republicans who participated in trying to overturn the 2020 result. Trump has endorsed for the role Mark Finchem in Arizona, Jody Hice in Georgia and Kristina Karamo in Michigan who have all claimed falsely that Trump won and should now be in his second term in the White House.
Jess Marsden, Counsel at Protect Democracy, said that the nationwide trend of state legislatures attempting to interfere with the work of nonpartisan election officials was gaining momentum. `It's leading us down an antidemocratic path toward an election crisis,'' she said.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, more than 260 bills were introduced in 41 States last year to hijack the election process. If this isn't a national emergency, I don't know what the hell is.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me just say to my colleagues, this is kind of pathetic. It is a nonbinding resolution that does nothing, and I guess attacks immigrant parents who are involved in local school boards, I guess.
But I mean, really? I mean, this is your response to what is happening all across this country in terms of the attacks on voting rights?
The bill that we are talking about bringing to the floor, let me just tell you some of the things it does. Our bill, which will become law, would enhance protections for individuals with disabilities.
It would make Election Day a national holiday. It would improve election security by requiring post-election audits and voter- verifiable paper records of votes.
It would protect elections from foreign interference. It would promote digital ad transparency.
It would end partisan gerrymandering. I can go on and on and on and on.
But the difference here is that I think we recognize, and I think, unfortunately, this has become a partisan issue because I think there are a lot of Independent voters and Republican voters across the country who are concerned, like Democrats in the House are, about the attacks on voting rights.
I mean, the idea that we have one State that passed a law that said it is going to be illegal to give people water who wait in a line to be able to cast their vote? And we know in some States, people have to wait for hours and hours and hours to vote. But somehow, that would be criminalized; that that would be forbidden? I mean, give me a break.
I mean, I don't know what the hell happened to the Republican Party. I mean, I don't know when they decided that the basis for who they are was a big lie.
We had an election in 2020. As one of my colleagues pointed out, a lot of people showed up and voted. I mean, the people who voted returned me and returned my Republican colleagues and brought new Members to this body.
And yet, they have been working overtime to embrace a big lie, after a violent insurrection, where people's lives were threatened. Our staff, the people who work here, their lives were threatened. Madam Speaker, 140 Capitol police officers were injured. After all of that, they still embraced the big lie and are working to try to nullify the legitimate votes of the people of this country.
It is stunning to me.
So, yeah, to take this, whatever it is, meaningless, nonbinding resolution, and, I guess, maybe you can say you are for something. But it is nothing. It is pathetic. Or we can actually do something about protecting the right of every single person in this country to vote.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me remind everybody: If you vote ``no'' on the previous question like my Republican colleagues would like you to do, you get to pass a meaningless, nonbinding resolution. Wow, what a courageous thing my friends are doing today.
Let me just say to my colleague from Minnesota, Mrs. Fischbach, whom I have a lot of respect for, yes, some of us raised objections in 2016 because we were concerned about Russian interference in our election. I think the Mueller report actually proved that we were right on that.
But let me ask her: How many votes did we have? None. Of all the people that objected, how much time did it take? Less than 8 minutes. How many Capitol Police, Mrs. Fischbach, were wounded that day? None. How much violence occurred in this Capitol that day? There was none. How much property was destroyed that day? None.
Compare that to what happened here, when many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, after a violent insurrection, after an attack on this democracy, came here, with absolutely no basis of fact or evidence, and voted to nullify the results of a free and fair election in the United States of America.
So when people in this country express concern--not just Democrats, but Independents and Republicans--when people express concern about the future of our democracy, that is what they are talking about.
Voting rights are under attack in State after State after State. We see what State legislatures are doing. But the right to vote is also being attacked when we have Members of this Chamber who actively try to subvert the will of the American people.
So you may think it is no big deal. Maybe you think that is what you have to do to try to maintain power. But the bottom line is, as John Lewis said, the right to vote is precious; it is almost sacred. We all have to come together, Democrats and Republicans, and we have to stand up and we have to protect it. That is what this is about.
So talk about whatever you want to talk about, but the bottom line is, we need to do this. This is the right thing to do. And by proceeding in this way, we will at least ensure that there is a debate in the United States Senate, and hopefully there will be a vote to actually make this into the law of the land.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Just a few quick things. One is, you know, I got a little whiplash here because, on the one hand, I am hearing my friends say they don't want Federal interference in local elections, yet that is what they are proposing here. Except I guess they are not because this is nonbinding and doesn't mean anything. I just point that out for the record.
Secondly, I know my colleague from Minnesota. I may have misheard her when she said that I voted to nullify the election in 2016. There were no votes on any of the State electoral college results. I am a stickler for accuracy on things like that.
Thirdly, let me remind people why we are here today. We are here to pass the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, which would expand automatic voter registration and same-day registration. It would expand early voting. It would enhance protections for individuals with disabilities. It would make election day a national holiday. It would improve election security. It would protect elections from foreign interference.
It will do things that, quite frankly, I think most reasonable people--I don't care what their politics may be--would think is the right thing to do.
Unfortunately, what is reasonable amongst the American people is not always reasonable here in the Congress. I think the effort that my Republican colleagues are engaged in really is about nullifying results that they don't like.
Well, do you know what? We all want to win elections, but sometimes we lose. It is not pleasant. But if that is what the people want, then the people should get what they want.
Madam Speaker, I again urge my colleagues to support what we are doing here today, and
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Minnesota for her service in this Congress and her service on the Rules Committee.
She said that she hasn't heard any compelling arguments why we should pass these bills. Maybe she wasn't listening to me because I think I made a lot of compelling arguments here today about why these bills are incredibly important.
Something is badly, badly broken, and we must have the courage to fix it, even if that means fixing it alone. That is what it means to do the right thing, politics be damned.
This is about more than petty partisanship. This is about whether we defend democracy or we sit back and watch its demise. I could never live with myself if I did nothing, and I think I speak for a lot of my colleagues on this side of the aisle. I wish there were more colleagues on the other side of the aisle who felt that way.
Working with my colleagues, I am going to try to do everything possible to stem the insidious tide of voter suppression in this country and the attempts to nullify the will of the American people because there is no guarantee that America will forever be a democracy. It isn't planted in our soil. It isn't floating through our air. It is us. We are the only ones who can guarantee democracy prevails, and this vote is about nothing less.
I strongly urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the underlying measure.
The material previously referred to by Mrs. Fischbach is as follows: Amendment to House Resolution 868
At the end of the resolution, add the following:
Sec. 2. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the resolution (H.Res. 866) recognizing that allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens. All points of order against consideration of the resolution are waived. The resolution shall be considered as read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the resolution and preamble to adoption without intervening motion or demand for division of the question except one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary.
Sec. 3. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.Res. 866.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.
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