Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - November 05, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is an unfortunate reality that with so much at stake in the ballot box, organized efforts to suppress the vote go nearly as far back as the right to vote itself. These efforts have cast a shadow over what Justice Earl Warren called ``the essence of a Democratic society'': the right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice.

The first voter suppression in America was direct: blanket restrictions based on race, based on gender, based on class. Over the years, these overt efforts were eventually replaced by more indirect and nefarious means: poll taxes, literacy tests, Whites-only primaries, and myriad other disenfranchisement laws aimed directly at minority voters. These crafty legal obstacles were often supplemented by blunt physical violence. But despite the many and varied efforts to impede the franchise, American democracy has shown an extraordinary resilience--and the American people have shown an abiding dedication, sometimes paying with life and limb, to defend the right of their fellow citizens to vote.

This Senate, of course, has a checkered past on voting rights. For many years, the Senate is where civil rights bills came to die, stalled by filibusters and tangled in parliamentary technique. Eventually, of course, the tide turned, and Congress ushered in a series of laws that remain among the most important ever enacted: the 24th amendment banning poll taxes; the Civil Rights Act; and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which banned literacy tests, authorized the Attorney General to appoint Federal voting examiners to ensure fair administration of elections, and required the Federal Government to ``pre-clear'' certain changes in the voting laws of local jurisdictions.

That law has been improved and reauthorized a number of times--as recently as last year--and is a cornerstone of our democracy. Nevertheless, as we all know, efforts to suppress the vote persist and continue to erode the promise of democracy for many Americans. For example, in the last election cycle, we saw organized efforts to deceive voters by sending out fliers with false information about the location of polling places or with phony endorsements, we saw threats that immigrants could be imprisoned if they voted.

The Judiciary Committee, under the wise leadership of Chairman Leahy, has responded with the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, which would criminalize various forms of voter intimidation and election misinformation.

In recent years, we have also seen the rise of another voter suppression tactic, which has come to be known as ``vote caging.'' Caging is a voter suppression tactic whereby a political campaign sends mail marked ``do not forward/return to sender'' to a targeted group of voters--often targeted into minority neighborhoods. The campaign then challenges the right of those citizens whose mail was returned as ``undeliverable'' on the grounds that the voter does not live at the registered address. Of course, as the Presiding Officer knows, there are many reasons why a piece of mail might be ``returned to sender'' that have nothing whatsoever to do with the voter's eligibility. For example, a voter might be an active member of the armed services and stationed far from home or a student lawfully registered at their parents' address. Even a typographical error during entry of the voter's registration information might result in a ``false negative.'' Nevertheless, these individuals end up facing a challenge to their vote and possibly losing their right to vote.

Caging came into the media spotlight this summer during Congress's investigation into the political dismissal of U.S. attorneys, but this practice is not new, and it is not rare. In fact, since 1982, the Republican National Committee has been operating under a consent decree, filed in New Jersey U.S. District Court, which states that the RNC shall ``refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities in polling places or election districts where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct, or the actual conduct of, such activities.''

This consent decree was entered into after the Republican National Committee, during the 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial election, initiated a massive voter-caging operation, sending mailers marked ``do not forward'' to voters in predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods throughout the State. The Republican National Committee then compiled a caging list based solely on the returned letters and challenged these voters at the polls. They did it again in Louisiana, in 1986, when the Republican National Committee hired a consultant to send 350,000 pieces of mail marked ``do not forward'' to districts that were mostly African American, and the consent decree was then modified to require the U.S. District Court in New Jersey to preclear any so-called ballot security programs undertaken by the Republican National Committee.

However, in part because the Federal consent decree does not apply to State parties or other campaigns, caging has continued. During the past few election cycles, there has been credible evidence of caging in Ohio, in Florida, in Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. Not every caging operation has been successful, but the failure of a voter suppression attempt is no excuse for it. Therefore, I am introducing the Caging Prohibition Act, which would prohibit challenging a person's eligibility to vote--or to register to vote--based on a caging list. Simply put, eligible voters should not fear their right to vote might be challenged at the polls because a single piece of mail never reached them.

The bill would also require any private party who challenges the right of another citizen to vote--or to register to vote--to set forth in writing, under penalty of perjury, the specific grounds for the alleged ineligibility. The principle here is simple: If you are going to challenge one of your fellow citizen's right to vote, you should at least have cause and be willing to stand behind it.

I am very proud of the extraordinary group of Senators who have agreed to be original cosponsors of this piece of legislation: Chairman Leahy of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Feinstein, Senator Dodd, Senator Kerry, Senator Feingold, Senator Schumer, Senator Nelson of Florida, Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, Senator Menendez, Senator Brown, and Senator Klobuchar. I was proud to work closely with the Brennan Center for Social Justice and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to develop the language of this bill. I would also like to thank People for the American Way for its support of this legislation.

In the 1964 case of Reynolds v. Sims, the U.S. Supreme Court stated:

[T]he right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired matter is preservative of other basic civil and political rights. .....

In other words, every right we have depends upon the right to vote. Organized voter-suppression efforts, including vote-caging schemes, infringe on this right and undermine our democracy. Congress should rise to the occasion and say ``enough is enough'' to vote caging.

I thank my many distinguished colleagues who have cosponsored this bill, and I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in stopping this nefarious voter suppression activity.

I yield the floor.

END

Source