Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNOCK. Mr. President, as a proud son of the great State of Georgia and a voice for our State here in this Chamber, I am deeply honored to join my colleagues here today to introduce this important legislation in honor of one of Georgia's and America's most influential public servants.

I am grateful for the comments of Senator Blumenthal, and I want to thank Senator Leahy and all of my colleagues for their leadership in introducing this bill that carries on the legacy of Congressman Lewis's pivotal work to protect the sacred right to vote.

John Lewis was my parishioner, and as I stand in support of this legislation named in his honor, I think of the many conversations I had with him over the years. I think of the Sunday mornings we boarded a bus, taking souls to the polls because I believe that voting, as he did, is a sacred undertaking. At root, it is about people's voice. And in that sense, it is about one's humanity.

I learned so much from Congressman Lewis and the lessons from his lived experiences working deep in the trenches to defend and advance voting rights. He laid it all on the line. When President Johnson took his pen and signed this legislation, making it law in a real sense, what he etched had already been affirmed in blood--the risk that John Lewis took, the ultimate sacrifice that others made as they lost their lives fighting for the vote, the voice, the humanity of every child of God.

And one of the most important tools that came out of that activism, that came out of that human sacrifice--one of the most important tools in this legislation is the process of preclearance. This process required that jurisdictions with a proven history of voting rights violations get approval from the Department of Justice or our Federal courts before making changes to local voting administration.

And, for decades, this was the tool that helped enfranchise countless voters, ensuring that they would have access to the ballot to exercise their constitutional right, and it kept some of the worst voter suppression efforts at bay.

And then, in 2013, the Supreme Court, in Shelby v. Holder, asked the Congress to update the coverage formula that determines which States are subject to preclearance. The Supreme Court said that this preclearance formula had somehow been outdated and Congress ought to bring it up to date. That is what they asked us to do in 2013.

Since then, Congress has been unwilling to act. Preclearance has been allowed to atrophy. And we have seen the results not only in Georgia, but in Texas, in Arizona, in Pennsylvania, all across our country. Earlier this year in Georgia, State leaders enacted a voter suppression law that will undoubtedly make it harder for some people to vote. If the tool of preclearance were in place right now, SB202 in Georgia likely would not even be on the books.

I think of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her dissenting opinion. When that decision came down, she said:

Throwing 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.

We threw away our umbrella, and we have found ourselves in the midst of a torrential rainstorm. Voter suppression laws are mushrooming all over the country. We are witnessing right now what happens to our democracy without the protections of preclearance and the other vital provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

The lack of robust voting rights protections has ramifications for every American, as we have seen efforts ramp up this year at passing sweeping, State-level voter suppression laws--not laws that only impact Black people and people of color, to be sure, but also students, seniors, whomever certain politicians are afraid of will somehow get in the way of their craven march to power.

And so this bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, is about Congress finally doing its job--finally doing what the Supreme Court asked us to do in 2013. It should have been done a long time ago.

The updated Voting Rights Advancement Act we are introducing today restores the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It strengthens our democracy by reestablishing preclearance, and it makes it better by updating it to also protect against specific practices we know suppress the vote, like polling place closures and new types of voter roll purges happening not only in the South, but all over the country.

Our bill also restores Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to protect minority communities from discriminatory voting practices after the Supreme Court diminished Section 2 earlier this year.

Mr. President, just like the Freedom to Vote Act me and many of my colleagues introduced just a few weeks ago to set national standards for voting so every eligible voice is heard, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act we introduce today is designed to meet future challenges and address additional antidemocratic efforts aimed at suppressing the vote all over our country.

Since I was elected on January 5, since that terrible day on January 6, when this very Capitol was assaulted, we have seen more than 400 proposals in 49 States. So the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act builds for us a fire station to protect against future fires, but the house of democracy is already on fire. And so we need the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, but we also need the Freedom to Vote Act. We have got to put out the fire. We have got to build a fire station for future fires.

Mr. President, I know there is a lot on our plate, but we can't waste any time getting these bills passed. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

John Lewis walked across a bridge in order to build a bridge to a new American future. We already had infrastructure. He understood that the infrastructure of our democracy was in trouble, and so he walked across a bridge in order to build a bridge.

So the House has already passed a version of this act. And I know my friend, Senator Joe Manchin, has been having conversations about the Freedom to Vote Act with our friends across the aisle. We are happy to talk to anybody on both sides of the aisle. A similar version of this legislation has been voted up by this Chamber repeatedly in the past with strong bipartisan support. Some 16 Republican Senators who were either here or in the House when it passed in 2006 98-0 are here today, and I ask them: What is the difference?

Voting rights are not just another issue. Voting rights are a preservative of all other rights. Voting rights are about the foundation of our democracy. And I believe that if the world's greatest deliberative body can't find a way forward to get this done, history will judge us harshly, and rightly so.

Reinhold Niebuhr said that humankind's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but our inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. This work, this assignment, which we have right now, is both possible and necessary. We can do it, and we must do it. It is the most important thing we can do this Congress, and I hope we will do it now.

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