Issues of the Day

Floor Speech

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Ms. TENNEY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding.

I just wanted a moment to take the opportunity to share something that I launched this week with Representative Garcia from California, and that is the Election Integrity Caucus.

In that caucus, our mission is to make sure that we have and preserve integrity in our election process, and that we have people understand just how important the right to vote is and why it is such a sacred act and a cornerstone of our constitutional Republic and the democratic principles that we hold dear.

A lot of people don't realize how important their right to vote is, and we just want to make sure that people understand that. We don't want it to be undermined.

We think that the Speaker's signature legislation, H.R. 1, undermines the integrity of the right to vote. We think every person who has a legal right to vote should vote in every election, but just once, not multiple times.

One of the things I wanted to mention because I just have a few minutes here, is that we would love to have all the Members join the caucus. Obviously, we would love to have a bipartisan caucus, but I am reaching out to everyone across the Nation to support our efforts to try to bring integrity to our election process and to understand how sacred the right to vote is.

I think it is really great that Mike Garcia, the Representative from California, who won by 333 votes, is joining me. I won by 109 votes in upstate New York in one of the longest election cycles in the Nation and did not even get sworn in until February 11.

So we just wanted to make sure everyone understands that we want to expand the number of people that vote. You know, you hear all the time that the Republicans want to suppress the vote. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We know so many great Americans through our Nation's history that have lost life and limb for this sacred right to vote privately, and we want those people to exercise that right and feel that their vote actually counts.

I think one thing that my race and Representative Garcia's--also our colleague, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who recently was confirmed the winner again in Iowa's Second District--shows is that every vote does count. And it should be something that people joyfully do, is to exercise that right to vote because I think a lot of people don't realize, we have a self-governing constitutional Republic; it is by and for the people.

I think one of the enduring themes, one of the reasons I love our former President Lincoln was that he used to talk about: Can we save the Republic? Can we be self-governing? And we want to be sure that we preserve all of that and how great this country is by actually forming this Election Integrity Caucus to travel around the country and encourage people to register to vote, and to vote.

And I will add, I just visited the border. And we have a great community of refugees where my district is up in New York's 22nd District, and I can't tell you how excited so many of these people are when they finally get to be citizens, and when they have a chance to vote, and when they have a chance to vote privately without somebody looking over their shoulder or knowing how they voted.

We just want to make that act sacred, and we want to make everyone aware that they have the opportunity to vote, and their vote is secure, and no one is going to take their vote or dilute their vote. We need to make sure that we preserve the integrity of our voter rolls.

It is interesting; I come from New York, and people think of New York as being this liberal bastion, which it is. But Article II of New York's Constitution talks about the right of suffrage.

In my own district, the first women to vote in New York State voted in Lisle, New York, in my district of New York. So we know how sacred that right is for women to have the right to vote. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton all hailed from New York State, so we have a great tradition of voting, and we want to lead the way toward that.

I know that we would love to have the gentleman join if he is interested in joining our caucus.

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Ms. TENNEY. And we have many safeguards in place to reserve that right to vote, but also to encourage people to go out and realize that their vote does count. And wouldn't it be great if every legal citizen voted in every election? That would be a true self-governing Republic that we all aspire to maintain and preserve.

Once again, I cannot emphasize enough, we urge everyone to join the caucus, including our Democratic friends. I think they would like what we are going to be standing for. We are going to be preserving and protecting the votes in all districts across the entire Nation, and I think it is going to be an exciting initiative.

I thank the gentleman for being willing to join. I know my time is limited today, but I wanted to take advantage of this. And I want to also thank the gentleman for taking this opportunity to be in this amazing place.

It is an honor to be elected to this great body, with so many good Members on both sides of the aisle, and to be able to do the business here for the people of our country in such a tough time, in so many ways, as we are emerging, hopefully, from the pandemic.

I am grateful that you take this time and talk about the news and events of the day that may sometimes get missed in the mainstream media. I am grateful to you, and I want to wish you the best and everyone a great weekend.

Let's talk about election integrity.

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