H.R. 5746

Floor Speech

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Mr. PADILLA. Madam President, just yesterday, we, the Nation, celebrated the moral vision and exceptional courage of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Born and raised under the violent oppression of Jim Crow segregation, Dr. King deeply felt the lasting wounds of slavery and segregation. Yet he believed in the promise of America's highest ideal: a system of democracy that we are all created equal; democracy that recognizes that we are all created equal.

In 1957, Dr. King told a crowd of civil rights leaders:

Our most urgent plea to the federal government is to guarantee our voting rights.

He went on to say:

Give us the ballot and we will creatively join in the freeing of the soul of America.

Time and again, from a bridge in Selma to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. King and the civil rights movement collectively forced this country to confront the brutal injustice of White supremacy.

Dr. King kindled a movement of peaceful protests, of voter registration, and a legal revolution. His leadership helped secure the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965--a monument to freedom and a guardian of our multiracial democracy.

As important a step as that was, Dr. King also understood that the path of progress, the road to freedom, would not be linear, it would not be direct, and it would be threatened by setbacks. Recent years have illustrated just how right Dr. King was. The clock is turning back on voting rights, and far too many people both inside this Capitol and outside it are ignoring or denying the alarm bells.

To truly honor Dr. King, we must rededicate ourselves to the cause of freedom and equality. We cannot wait for a convenient season to act. We cannot wait for another Bloody Sunday. Look around. This is our moment. The threats to democracy today may look different than Bull Connor with the bullhorn, but they are no less real.

Now, when Republicans claim that this is all hyperbole or hysteria, as Senator Romney just referenced, consider this: In the year since our Nation's most secure election ever, with record voter turnout, Republican State legislatures have passed 34 laws, not expanding access to the ballot, restricting access to the ballot and also threatening election security.

Just look at Georgia--yes, Georgia--where Republicans passed an elections bill, SB 202, on a purely partisan basis this last spring. In the 2020 election, Georgians voted in record numbers. Many voted by mail or used early voting options to be able to cast their ballots safely and securely in the midst of this once-in-a-century global health pandemic. Guess what happened. Those ballots were processed, counted, audited, and the results certified.

So how did Georgia Republicans respond? They wrote SB 202 to cut the number of early voting drop boxes in Atlanta by more than 75 percent to make it harder--not easier but harder--for voters who mistakenly go to the wrong polling place to cast their ballots and have their votes in statewide contests counted; to stop new voters from being able to register to vote in a runoff election if there is one. Now, make no mistake, Republicans will deny the intention, but the effect is clear: These changes disproportionately disenfranchise the votes and the voices of people of color.

When voters end up standing in line for hours to cast their vote on election day, as voters of color disproportionately do, SB 202 prevents volunteers from offering them food or water.

Now, Senator Romney said that these provisions are in place to prevent the harassment of voters waiting to vote. Look at what other States have done. There is a clear distinction between somebody harassing a voter, interfering with the electoral process, versus offering a thirsty neighbor a drink. So outlaw harassment. I think it kind of is. The general public knows the distinction. So think about that--someone standing in line outdoors, with weather, for hours to do their patriotic duty, and Georgia Republicans make it a crime to give that person a bottle of water.

SB 202 isn't about election security or voter fraud. The data on that is clear. Voter fraud is exceedingly rare in Georgia and across the country. SB 202 is about erecting barriers for low-income voters, for voters of color, for younger voters to participate in our democracy.

As a member of the Senate Rules Committee, I traveled to Georgia last summer with my colleagues for a field hearing on voter suppression. Just last week, I was invited to join President Biden and Vice President Harris in Georgia as well. So when Minority Leader McConnell tries to tell you that no State in America is making it harder to vote, he is wrong. The people of this country deserve to hear the truth, and not just from Georgia but in Texas, where a new law empowers partisan poll watchers to threaten election officials with lawsuits; in Arizona, where a new law will unnecessarily cut tens of thousands of voters-- eligible voters--from the permanent early voting list.

Thirty-four new laws in this past year alone will raise obstacles for people who simply want to cast their ballot, and that is nothing to say of the hundreds more that have been proposed that will surely be reintroduced in future years and future sessions if we do not act.

The clock on Dr. King's victory is already turning back. The alarm bells of our democracy are ringing. They have been ringing since the year 2013, when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Yes, it may still be in place, but the preclearance requirement--the strongest protection within the Voting Rights Act that stood to prevent discriminatory election laws for nearly five decades--was undone by the Supreme Court in their decision in Shelby v. Holder. Yet the Senate has failed three times this last year to even debate a voting rights bill. We failed to debate because of the filibuster rule, which allows a minority of Senators to obstruct the voice of the American majority.

Republican Senators claim that our legislation, the Freedom to Vote Act, is partisan and divisive, but what goal could be more American than securing the fundamental right to vote for all eligible Americans?

If Republican Senators are sincere about opposing partisan changes to election laws, then they should join us in condemning partisan voter suppression in Georgia, in Texas, in Arizona, and across the country. Instead, Senate Republicans only complain about and obstruct our efforts here in the Senate to respond to these laws, and in doing so, they leave Democrats no choice. We must change the filibuster rule to protect voting rights for every American.

The Senate exists to serve American democracy, and the Senate rules exist to help the Senate serve American democracy. When those rules endanger our democracy, the answer is simple: We must change them.

It is not unprecedented. The Senate changed the filibuster in 1917 to protect our Nation from the threat of World War I. The Senate changed the filibuster in 1975 to try to restore the function of this body. In recent decades, the Senate has made more than 160 exceptions to the filibuster to do what is best for the Nation. Today, it is time for us to do so once again.

With all due respect to the history and the traditions of the Senate, our job is to protect the future of this country, beginning with our democracy. As Martin Luther King once told us, ``America is essentially a dream, a dream . . . yet unfulfilled.''

Today, it falls on each of us to take up Dr. King's lifelong struggle. This is our moment. This is our moment to debate. This is our moment to vote. We must work together to pass a voting rights law that secures the vote for every American regardless of race, religion, ability, or gender.

Sometimes progress requires that we change the rules, as we did last month when we changed the filibuster to protect our economy. Sometimes progress requires that one party act alone, as the courageous architects of the 15th Amendment did a century and a half ago.

Look around this Senate, and think how surprised the men who created the filibuster in the early 1800s would be to see a Senator Warnock, a Senator Baldwin, myself, and others serving in this Chamber today, but change that strengthens our democracy is change for the better.

Colleagues, we must rise to meet this general moment of challenge in the spirit of Dr. King and pass these voting rights bills.

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