Directing the Removal of United States Armed Forces From Hostilities Within or Against the Islamic Republic of Iran That Have Not Been

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am honored to follow my colleague from Illinois on the topic of paramount interest to this body and to the American people.

You know, future generations of Americans will read the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais with dismay and embarrassment. Right now, there are a lot of Americans reading it with not only dismay and embarrassment but with outrage and fear because, in that decision, the Court gutted section 2 of the Voting Rights Act--landmark legislation that ensured minority communities had the opportunity to elect a representative of their choice--in other words, the people picking their political representatives, not the political representatives picking the people, the constituents whom they will represent.

That decision was not handed down in a vacuum. It comes as President Trump and his handpicked Supreme Court majority launch a two-front attack on our elections: voting rights and the democratic structure. Trump has sought to purge voters from the rolls, has demanded voters' most sensitive data, has threatened to send ICE to the polls, has raided election offices to seize ballots, has tried to kill mail-in voting, and has claimed he will nationalize elections.

That is his word--``nationalize'' elections--meaning have the Federal Government take over elections, which constitutionally are the States' responsibility under the law, under the Constitution.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court lent a helping hand to President Trump, inflicting generational damage on our democracy as well. In its decision demolishing voting rights, the Supreme Court decided that it knows best when it comes to societal, political, electoral conditions on the ground. The people's elected representatives simply can't be trusted in their determination that every American ought to have a meaningful right to vote. Election rights are too important to be left to elected representatives. The Supreme Court knows best.

Justice Alito's majority opinion blithely justifies the decision on the grounds that the ``Voting Rights Act led to `great strides' '' in electoral opportunities, since it was enacted, such that section 2 is no longer necessary.

Of course, if you want the definition of an activist Court out of control, it is a Court that makes the judgment on what it thinks are the facts without having any factual evidence that a provision of law is no longer necessary. That provision of law was passed by the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, but the U.S. Supreme Court thinks it knows better.

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her dissent to a previous ruling of this Court diminishing voting rights, the logic of tossing away section 2 because it has worked so well--that is Justice Alito's logic--``is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.'' That rainstorm now has come. Before the ink was dry on the Court's decision, States were already carving up Black majority districts with reckless abandon.

So, with the President and his Court majority's hostility toward American democracy, there is only one branch of the Federal Government left standing to protect our voting rights, and it is the branch that the Constitution actually entrusts with authority over elections--the U.S. Congress. Yes, us. Now, more than ever, it is incumbent upon the Members of this institution to take action to preserve our great Republic.

As Benjamin Franklin said, it is ``a republic, if you can keep it.''

Now is the time that we are called upon literally to keep it. We have done it before in circumstances not dissimilar to the crisis we face today.

In 1965, when our democracy was at an inflection point, as millions of our fellow Americans were being blocked from exercising the franchise, our predecessors passed the original Voting Rights Act in the face of unprecedented political resistance. You need not be a constitutional or a historical scholar to remember the great fight that was entailed in the Civil Rights Act of 1965, which guaranteed voting rights.

Then, in 1982--much like today with the Supreme Court's gutting of section 2--Congress passed and President Reagan signed a law overruling the Court and emphasizing that Congress meant what it said: All Americans--all Americans--must have the opportunity to choose representatives as they wish.

Now, to be sure, we face a new and profoundly dangerous situation today. The sitting President of the United States is actively seeking to undermine free and fair elections in our country, and the Supreme Court has entirely abdicated its responsibility to safeguard our fundamental rights. The Supreme Court is doing his bidding. It is in his pocket. The Justices of the Supreme Court are regarded these days by a lot of Americans as nothing more than politicians in robes.

We ought to learn from the courage of civil rights leaders, legislators, and ordinary people who have come before us. Their insistence that our democracy belongs to all Americans was the force that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act and its later amendments.

We, too, now must act with urgency. Healing the damage done to voting rights and rebuilding our democratic structures will take substantial reforms. We can start right now, today, with measures that should be uncontroversial.

We must pass, for example, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. I am proud to be a supporter of it. I have tried to help lead it. We must significantly increase election security grant funding to ensure that local election officials can smoothly and securely administer our elections as these midterms approach--smoothly and securely administer elections.

And that kind of support is more essential than ever at a time when elections are under real threat. We must significantly work with and support State leaders who have stood up to the administration and refused to hand over voters' most sensitive information.

We must defeat the attempt to further disenfranchise voters through the so-called SAVE America Act. It seems moribund, but we need to be wary that it could be revived.

And we must ensure that this evermore Supreme Court does not have the final word on the right to vote in America. Just like in 1982, Congress has an obligation and an opportunity to pass a voting rights statute so powerful and unambiguous that not even this Court can find a way to overrule it.

We are approaching our Nation's 250th anniversary, a great milestone for a republic that Benjamin Franklin said we would have to work to keep. Now is our time to keep it.

Callais reminds us that the American experiment has been an ongoing struggle to fulfill the ideals of the Revolution for all people of the country. By and large, that history has been one of expanding rights, embracing more people with liberties and power to control their own lives and a say in the government that makes decisions about those lives. We have expanded voting rights, until now. And, right now, voting rights are in the balance.

Our history has not been linear. Every two steps forward, sometimes a step back because of reactionary backlash to advances in rights and liberties, but Americans have never stopped fighting to ensure that all this Nation's people have a say in determining how we can make our Union more perfect.

The Supreme Court's decision in Callais--dangerous and misguided as it is--will not stop us from continuing that 250-year fight. Now I ask all of my colleagues to join in this effort to preserve our democracy.

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