For the People Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I watched television Sunday night with my wife. There was a movie called ``Selma.'' Oprah Winfrey had something to do with it because she was in it, and it was, as you might expect, a quality production.

It told the story of what happened in 1965 in Selma, AL. It showed the horrific images of Americans being beaten and brutalized in Selma for daring to protest peacefully. For what? For the right to vote.

Fewer people know about Turnaround Tuesday. That was the day, 2 days after Bloody Sunday, when many of the same people who had been beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday went back to that bridge to make it plain that they were going to come back again and again until every right of every citizen to vote was secured. That was Turnaround Tuesday.

I had a lucky experience. The late John Lewis, who marched across that Edmund Pettus Bridge and almost gave his life in the process, took me, one foggy Sunday morning, for a walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and he told me what he remembered from that day.

I have seen pictures over and over again. There he is in his white raincoat, with a backpack, marching in the front of the line, and how he was bashed in the head by either a trooper or someone who came along trying to stop them from marching. He almost died as a result of it. It was something I will never forget. I feel blessed that I had that experience.

And then there was the vote on the floor yesterday. What a disappointment. Today, I want to say it is ``welcome back'' Wednesday. Welcome back to the fight to preserve voting rights that has never ended.

It didn't start on that bridge in Selma, and it won't end in this Chamber in Washington. This battle is going to continue because there are those people who know that if you want to control America politically, you have got to control those who vote.

We saw it after the Civil War, when we ended slavery and African Americans initially had an opportunity to vote and lead in Southern States. And then, sad to report, my political party, the Democratic Party at that time, was part of initiating the Jim Crow laws, which made it difficult, if not impossible, to vote.

And the battle was on, and it is being waged to this day, about whether or not African Americans have a right to vote. Make no mistake. When Republicans come to the floor and go through these long, elaborate explanations of why a coordinated effort by Republican legislatures in 20 different States is just good government, I think they know better. It is not good government, and it is not good for the people of those States, particularly if you are a minority.

Well, this fight to prevent billionaires from buying elections and root out corruption in government didn't end with that filibuster yesterday. Republicans succeeded in delaying this debate for a time, but they are not going to derail it. This is too important. Our democracy is on the line.

Five months ago--I am sure Madam President will never forget it, as I won't--a murderous mob--five people died--a murderous mob attacked this Capitol and tried to overturn the Presidential election.

Who sent them? Well, it is clear to me who sent them: a vain, self- pitying former President who couldn't accept defeat or the will of the American people. So Donald Trump created a Big Lie that the election was stolen. He used that lie to incite that mob to attack this Capitol. He continues to peddle the Big Lie from his exile at some country club.

Now the party that coddled that failed President when he was in power is weaponizing the Big Lie and using it to justify a relentless attack on voting rights across America.

Three weeks ago, Senate Republicans used the filibuster to kill a bill creating an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate who was behind this January 6 insurrection. They killed it with the filibuster, just as they tried to kill the voting rights bill yesterday. That filibuster is an echo, sadly, of how it has been used in the area of civil rights for as long as it has been in the Senate.

This Big Lie is metastasizing; it is growing. Instead of stopping it, Republicans are using all their leverage to prevent us from confronting it. The filibuster yesterday was day one of this fight. It wasn't the end of the story.

Welcome to day two. We mean to keep marching until we cross that bridge and stop this assault on our democracy and put an end to the Big Lie once and for all.

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