Voting Rights Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I will speak today on two topics--No. 1, the substance of the bill, which is, I guess, yet to be known, regarding voting rights, which I consider to be a Federal takeover of State elections, and the constant threat of changing the rules of the Senate to do away with the legislative filibuster as we know it.

I would say to my Democratic colleagues, this has been going on for quite a while, the constant threat by Senator Schumer to change the rules to pass whatever legislation you-all can come up with.

All I can say is, things were different when we were in charge. We had the House, the Senate, and the White House. President Trump constantly urged Senator McConnell and all of us on the Republican side to change the rules of the Senate so he could pass his agenda unimpeded; that anything that came out of the House, which was under Republican control, could sail right through the Senate with Republican votes only.

It was pretty clear to my Democratic colleagues that was not a good outcome, I thought for the country, but I guess for them.

We signed a letter on April 7, 2017--61 signatures: 28 Republicans, 32 Democrats, and 1 Independent. The letter was sent to Senator McConnell, who was the majority leader, and the minority leader was Senator Schumer at the time, urging both leaders that, no matter what differences we have had regarding Executive nominations and judges, we should preserve the minority's rights under the so-called legislative filibuster.

Apparently, it made perfect sense to my Democratic colleagues that the Senate not change to accommodate Donald Trump and his wishes. I was assuming that the statement by my Democratic colleagues was about the institution, not just about the Trump Presidency and the times in which we lived in 2017.

Apparently, I was wrong--except for a handful. And to Senators Sinema and Manchin, you have led from the front, not from the rear. You have taken your fair share of criticism as you have opposed changing the Senate rules to accommodate the voting rights bill, and it has been-- the argument goes that this is so fundamental to democracy, voting, that the Senate has to give way in this instance.

All I can say is that when many of us were in your shoes, we didn't make an exception for a piece of legislation that we thought was critical to the future of the country. And it would be easy to find an exception here and there and everywhere, to the point that the rule bends with the exception. Now, I appreciate your steadfastness in that regard, and, apparently, as you read the news, a few more Democrats are becoming publicly unnerved by the thought of changing the legislative filibuster--just a handful. And we are supposed to be in over the weekend, I think, maybe even into Monday, to have the change--rules change--but that may be in flux now because it appears a handful of Democrats are showing some distaste for changing the rules. I don't know why they are coming out now. I appreciate it.

I don't think it would be very popular in certain States to change the rules of the Senate that would pave the way for the most radical agenda in my lifetime. I don't know if that has got something to do with it or if there is a newfound religion here by a handful.

To the rest, I won't forget this. I was 1 of the 28 Republicans who signed the letter to the leaders of the Senate asking that the institution maintain the legislative filibuster, and not because it benefited me personally but because I thought it benefited the American people.

The day you make the Senate the House, we are going to have wild policy changes. When we are in charge, we will go down one road; when Democrats are in charge, they will go down another road, and there will be a just unnerving aspect of this, in my view, and I think for well over a century, the Senate has prevented these wild changes. And that means you don't get what you would like as conservatives. The same people who are applauding my resistance to changing the filibuster today were all over me when we were in charge wanting me to change the filibuster. I understand that.

Ideological people want their way, and they don't particularly care how they get it. Most Americans have a more balanced approach about how the legislative process should work, and I think, over time, the requirement to get a handful of people from the other party to pass legislation, particularly major legislation, has served the country well.

There are things that we would do completely different than our Democratic friends because we have different views, and some of these ideas just never make it through the Senate. And every now and then we will come up with solutions to hard problems that are bipartisan because we have to, as long as the legislative filibuster is around.

So the idea of changing the legislative filibuster would pave the way, if Democrats have all branches of government here, to make DC and Puerto Rico a State. I think they would. It paves the way for increasing the number of Justices on the Supreme Court because liberals don't like the current makeup. I think there would be a move to abolish the electoral college, which would be devastating for South Carolina.

And to all the people in this body, adding two more States may serve your interests, but it certainly dilutes the power you have as an individual State.

So the legislative filibuster is a stop sign to the most radical agenda I have seen since I have been up here, and it was a stop sign to the Trump agenda, and you just fill in the blanks.

This effort by Senator Schumer to abolish the legislative filibuster under the guise of a single exception is cynical and I think a sign of desperation.

I like Senator Schumer. I have been able to work with him-- immigration and other hot-button issues--but the truth of the matter is, this all started back when President Bush's judicial nominees were filibustered en mass that led to the Gang of 14, spearheaded by Senator Byrd, sort of one of the icons of the Senate, to make sure that filibustering judges would be done only in extraordinary circumstances. We broke the logjam. We lost a couple of good conservative judges as part of the compromise, and that held until it no longer held.

In 2013, I got a call from Senator Schumer--I never will forget it-- that we are going to push for a rules change when it comes to court of appeals and district court judges--I think in 2013.

I remember the reaction I had and Senator McCain's, and they were able to do that. And when President Trump became President and had a couple of Democratic--excuse me--a couple Supreme Court vacancies to fill, they were all filibustered, starting with Gorsuch, to the point that we changed the rules so that he could get some people on the Court who I think were highly qualified. So the bottom line is, when it comes to judges, the ship has sailed. Executive appointments, maybe that should have been changed. The effect on the judiciary, I think, is going to be detrimental over time.

The most ideological elements of each conference will have a large say about what kind of judges we put on the court, and you will see a change over time from the right and the left because you no longer have to reach across the aisle to put a judge on the court.

Apply that to legislation and, again, it would be devastating to the country and this body to not require some form of consensus when it comes to legislation and deny the minority the ability to require that consensus.

As to voting rights itself, I think this is the most hyped, manufactured issue in a long time. This is a problem in search of--it is not a problem in search of a solution; it is a manufactured problem.

States under our Constitution are supposed to run elections. In my State, I think we do a pretty good job. There are some efforts to change election laws throughout the country. As more and more people vote by mail, I think it is incumbent that you have the same voter identification requirements by voting by mail as you do in person. It would be so easy to manipulate that system.

The bottom line here is this is an effort by the Democratic leader to basically say that Republicans, at our heart, are a bunch of racists when it comes to voting; that the reason they are having to do this is that States are changing laws to disenfranchise people of color and minorities.

I find that, like, incredibly offensive--I mean, just beyond offensive. In my State, which is 30 percent-plus African American, we have robust opportunity to vote. All these laws that are being changed to implement voter integrity, I think, are necessary in the times in which we live.

But the bill coming before the body, whatever it is, is a federalization of the election process. It is not about enfranchising the voters; it is about enfranchising the ability of the left to take over the electoral process to skew it to their favor, and I think almost all of us see it that way over here.

So, you know, as a Republican, particularly from the South, you sort of get used to being called a racist. It is never pleasant, but you sort of get used to it. It is the cheapest form of politics. It is very unsavory to the people in my State.

I went through that process in 2020, and I hope I have lived a life to convince reasonable people that, whatever flaws I have, being a racist is not one of them.

And to clothe this exercise here as some kind of moral imperative that if we don't do this bill, then people throughout the country will lose their right to vote because Republicans, at the end of the day, don't want people of color to vote is beyond offensive, and I hope it fails and that we can get back to some sense of regular order around here.

But I will end with this: When the shoe was on the other foot, most of us didn't do this. Your country needs you right now to speak up. If you support changing the legislative filibuster one time for the voting rights bill, you support the end of it because there will be no end to the exceptions.

And most of you over there have been hiding in the corner, letting other people take the arrows. It is time for you to speak up. I actually hope we have a vote because I want to know where people are, whom I can count on and whom I can't, to understand what is transactional and what is about the body. Time will tell.

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