Discriminatory Voter Identification Laws

Floor Speech

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to talk about the discriminatory voter ID laws that are undemocratic and simply un-American.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as ALEC, has long been a secretive collaboration between big business and conservative Tea Party Republican politicians serving in this Nation's State and Federal legislatures. ALEC's goal is to advance the special interests of large corporations and the super-rich and wealthy by any means necessary.

Yesterday, I discussed how ALEC has fiendishly and unabashedly produced legislative policy that degrades our air and water quality and wrecks our environment. Last week, I outlined how ALEC has infiltrated our criminal justice system by producing legislation that stimulates higher and higher levels of incarceration, to the benefit and to the surging profits of the private for-profit prison industry.

And if that wasn't enough, with 194 days left until the general election, ALEC has been working hard to suppress the votes of the most vulnerable in our society. ALEC has met with its corporate allies and right-wing State officials behind closed doors to promote legislation to suppress the votes of likely Democratic voters.

By making it more difficult for people to exercise their right to vote, ALEC's model voter ID act grants an electoral advantage to Republicans, while undermining the right of individuals to vote.

In addition, ALEC has worked to make it easier for corporations to participate in the political process. Their Public Safety and Elections Task Force promotes model legislation that would disenfranchise millions of voters, devastate campaign finance reform, and allow for greater corporate influence in elections.

Mr. Speaker, it has injected these corrosive laws into our States, and they have spread like untreated cancer. Bills based on ALEC's model legislation have already been introduced in 34 States and passed in many of those States.

Voter suppression comes in many forms, from new voter ID laws to eliminating Election Day registration to restricting voter registration drives by community groups to reducing the number of days for early voting and limiting the number of days for voter registration. There is no doubt that ALEC is directly tied to the proliferation of these voter ID laws in the States' legislatures.

These policies are not about preventing fraud in the voting process. This legislation is solely about disenfranchising minorities, the elderly, and other at-risk voters, such as the poor, who are unlikely to have the technical kinds of ID that these pieces of legislation demand.

After the spotlight has started to shine on ALEC, they have come out publicly and said, Okay, we're going to get out of the public policy business. They're not going to not write any more model legislation like the Florida ``shoot first and ask questions later.'' They're not going to introduce any more of that type of legislation. They also have announced they're going to shut down their Public Safety and Elections Task Force, which is the committee that produced the voter suppression legislation.

That's a good thing. But the damage has already been done, and we're going to have to remain vigilant about this group, this shadowy group, ALEC, this unholy alliance between Tea Party Republican legislators and big business. We'll have to keep our eyes open. I'll have more to talk about in the coming days.

Source