For the People Act of 2021
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for her leadership and for adding to this legislation--my legislation--the For the People Act, adding the Coretta Scott King Mid- Decade Redistricting Prohibition Act that I wrote as long ago as 2006.
Madam Speaker, section 2402 prohibits a State that has been redistricted in accordance with this legislation from doing it in the mid-decennial, waiting till the next time, the decennial apportionment; so no mid-decade kind of redistricting that has been so unhelpful to all of us.
Madam Speaker, I rise, as well, to support the Swalwell amendments regarding the college student voting, as well as prohibiting false voting polling places and adding colleges and universities' responsibility to give civic information to our students.
I also support the privacy information required by the Speier amendment to ensure that there is no domestic violence and dating violence because your voting information gets out.
And I also support the Waters amendment that prohibits misinformation, which threatens potential voters with civil or legal penalties if they exercise their right to vote. I can assure you, this happens in the minority community.
And I do support the 16-years-of-age amendment, because if you can be on the front lines of civil rights and protest for justice and democracy, you have the right to vote.
Madam Speaker, let's educate our young people so they can vote. I am very happy to support the en bloc.
Madam Speaker, as an original cosponsor, I rise today in support of H.R. 1, the ``For the People Act of 2021,'' which expands access to the ballot box, reduces the influence of big money in politics, and strengthens ethics rules for public servants.
Specifically, the For the People Act will:
Make it easier, not harder, to vote by implementing automatic voter registration, requiring early voting and vote by mail, committing Congress to reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act and ensuring the integrity of our elections by modernizing and strengthening our voting systems and ending partisan redistricting.
Reform the campaign finance system by requiring all political organizations to disclose large donors, updating political advertisement laws for the digital age, establishing a public matching system for citizen-owned elections, and revamping the Federal Election Commission to ensure there's a cop on the campaign finance beat.
Strengthen ethics laws to ensure that public officials work in the public interest by extending conflict of interest laws to the President and Vice President; requiring the release of their tax returns; closing loopholes that allow former members of Congress to avoid cooling-off periods for lobbying; closing the revolving door between industry and the federal government; and establishing a code of conduct for the Supreme Court.
H.R. 1 expands access to the ballot box by taking aim at institutional barriers to voting.
This bill ensures that individuals who have completed felony sentences have their full rights restored and expands early voting and simplify absentee voting; and modernize the U.S. voting system.
I am particularly proud and appreciative to Chairwoman Lofgren and Congressman Sarbanes that the For The People Act incorporates in Section 2402 of the legislation the Coretta Scott King Mid-Decade Redistricting Prohibition Act that I first offered in 2006 during the Judiciary Committee markup of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 reauthorization and as standalone legislation in the 114th Congress.
This provision, section 2402, prohibits a State that has been redistricted in accordance with this legislation from engaging in redistricting again until after the next decennial apportionment unless required by a court to do so to comply with the Constitution of the United States, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Constitution of the State, or the terms or conditions of this subtitle.
Madam Speaker, this legislation is particularly timely because more than 55 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we are still discussing voter suppression--something which should be a bygone relic of the past, but yet continues to disenfranchise racial minorities, immigrants, women, and young people.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a watershed moment for the Civil Rights Movement--it liberated communities of color from legal restrictions barring them from exercising the fundamental right to civic engagement and political representation.
But uncaged by Supreme Court's infamous 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), which neutered the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, 14 states, including my state of Texas, took extreme measures to enforce new voting restrictions before the 2016 presidential election.
If is not a coincidence that many of these same states have experienced increasing numbers of black and Hispanic voters in recent elections.
If not for invidious, state-sponsored voter suppression policies like discriminatory voter ID laws, reduced early voting periods, and voter intimidation tactics that directly or indirectly target racial minorities, the 2016 presidential election might have had a drastically different outcome.
Madam Speaker, let me list some of the salutary features of the legislation that will make it easier for Americans to exercise their right to vote, the most precious right of all because as President Johnson said in securing passage of the Voting Rights Act, the right to vote ``is preservative of all other rights.''
H.R. 1 modernizes the voter registration system by requiring each state to make available online voter registration, correction, cancellation, and designation of party affiliation.
In addition, H.R. 1:
Requires states to permit voters to register on the day of a federal election, including during early voting.
Limits the authority of states to remove registrants from the official list of eligible voters in elections for federal office in the state based on interstate voter registration crosschecks .
Requires states to provide annual reports on voter registration statistics to the Election Assistance Commission.
Provides HAVA funds to implement the voter registration modernization reforms .
Makes it unlawful to hinder, interfere or prevent an individual from registering to vote.
Instructs the Election Assistance Commission to develop best practices for states to deter and prevent such violations.
H.R. 1 explicitly prohibits `voter caging', the pernicious practice of using returned non-forwardable mail as the basis for removing registered voters from the rolls, and it prohibits challenges to eligibility from individuals who are not election officials without an oath of good faith factual basis.
Importantly, the legislation prohibits providing false information about elections to hinder or discourage voting and increases penalties for voter intimidation.
I support the declaration in the legislation of the right of citizens to vote in federal elections will not be denied because of a criminal conviction unless a citizen is serving a felony sentence in a correctional facility and it requires states and the federal government to notify individuals convicted of a state or federal felony, respectively, of their reenfranchisement
H.R. 1 promotes election accuracy, integrity, and security by requiring states to use individual, durable, voter-verified paper ballots and that said ballots be counted by hand or an optical character recognition device and that a voter be given the opportunity to correct his or her ballot should a mistake be made; and it also requires that provisional ballots from eligible voters at incorrect polling places be counted.
The legitimacy and stability of democratic governance is always enhanced by increased voter participation in elections, so I am very pleased that H.R. 1 outlaws many practices resorted to by voting opponents to reduce election participation.
In particular, H.R. 1 requires at least 15 consecutive days of early voting for federal elections and that early voting locations be near public transportation, in rural areas, and open for at least 10 hours per day.
Additionally, the legislation prohibits a state from imposing restrictions on an individual's ability to vote by mail and requires a state to carry out a program to track and confirm the receipt of absentee ballots and to make this information available to the voter who cast the ballot.
Also, the bill requires the prepayment of postage on return envelopes for voting materials, which includes any voter registration form, any application for an absentee ballot, and any blank absentee ballot transmitted by mail.
Madam Speaker, another important feature of H.R. 1 is that it promotes voter access by mandating several improvements to election administration, including:
Treating universities as voter registration agencies;
Requiring states to notify an individual, not later than 7 seven days before election, if the individual's polling place has changed;
Requiring states to allow voters to sign sworn affidavits to vote in lieu of presenting photo ID;
Providing accommodations for voters residing in Indian lands;
Ensuring equitable and efficient operation of polling places, reducing long lines and wait times for voters;
Requiring states to provide secured drop boxes for voted absentee ballots in elections for federal office;
Prohibiting states from restricting curbside voting;
Imposing requirements for federal election contingency plans in response to natural disasters and emergencies; and
Clarifying that failure to vote is not grounds for removing registered voters from the rolls.
Of course, nothing in this legislation prohibits or restricts the authority of states to provide greater opportunities for voting, and the bill makes that explicitly clear.
This litany of good measures demonstrates all the many ways and means through which H.R. 1 expands voter participation and election integrity, and our experience of the previous four years counsels the urgency of adopting them.
I am much less confident of the ability of one component of the bill--the title mandating creation of ``Independent Redistricting Commissions''--to strengthen our democracy; in fact I believe that title of the legislation should be stricken because of its potential to negatively effective marginalized communities and minority groups.
I am not contending that independent redistricting commissions are an unconstitutional usurpation of authority belonging exclusively to state legislatures; that argument was presented and rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona. Independent Redistricting Commission, 576 U.S. 787 (2015).
Instead, the nation's experience with independent redistricting commissions is still in its early stages, and I believe that instead of mandating a one-size fits all approach, Congress should allow further experimentation to occur in the states, the ``laboratories of democracy,'' as they were described by Justice Brandeis in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 (1932).
In addition, it appears to me that the selection process laid out in the bill for choosing members of the independent redistricting commissions is too random and will not result in a commission comprised of members reflective of the communities directly affected by the work of the commission, particularly members of racial and language minorities.
Madam Speaker, the issue of redistricting and how to do it fairly is a never-ending one, and, as most political scientists agree, it is virtually impossible to draw most congressional and legislative districts in ways that are competitive; redistricting exacerbates geographical polarization, but it does not create it.
Madam Speaker, H.R. 1 must be passed because many of the civil rights that I fought for as a student and young lawyer have been undermined or been rolled back by reactionary forces in recent years.
To add insult to injury, the immediately preceding Administration issued an Executive Order establishing a so-called ``Election Integrity'' Commission to investigate not voter suppression, but so- called ``voter fraud'' in the 2016 election.
The 45th President and his followers were unceasing in their efforts to perpetuate the myth of voter fraud, but it remains just that: a myth.
Between 2000 and 2014, there were 35 credible allegations of voter fraud out of more than 834 million ballots cast--that is less than 1 in 28 million votes.
An extensive study by social scientists at Dartmouth College uncovered no evidence to support Trump's hysterical and outrageous allegations of widespread voter fraud ``rigging'' the 2016 election.
Just for the record, Madam Speaker, the popular vote of the 2016 presidential election was:
Hillary Clinton: 65,853,5160.
Donald Trump: 62,884,8240.
Trump's deficit of 2.9 million was the largest of any Electoral College winner in history by a massive margin, and despite the allegations of the current Administration, there have been only 4 documented cases of voter fraud in the 2016 election.
The same is true for the 2020 presidential election, which again Donald Trump claimed was fraudulent after losing the popular vote to President Biden by more than 7 million votes, and the Electoral College by 306-232, the exact margin that he claimed constituted a landslide and epic blowout when he won the Electoral College vote in 2016.
Again, and just for the record, Madam Speaker, the popular vote of the 2020 presidential election was:
Joe Biden: 81,281,502.
Donald Trump: 74,222,593.
The Trump Campaign brought more than 63 legal challenges to the 2020 election, claiming the outcomes were tainted by wide-spread and massive fraud but every court, whether state or federal, and nearly 90 judges, including Trump appointees, summarily rejected these baseless claims for failure of proof.
Of course, this did not deter the reckless 45th President who then went on to threaten and coerce state election officials to corruptly change vote counts and after that ploy failed, incited his loyalists to storm the U.S. Capitol and use force and violence if necessary to prevent the Congress from conducting the constitutionally required Joint Meeting to count the electoral votes cast and announce the winner of the presidential election.
Madam Speaker, the Trump Voter Fraud Commission, like many of Trump's business schemes, was a massive scam built on countless lies that did not hold up to any level of scrutiny.
As Members of Congress, we should be devoting our time, energy, and resources addressing Russian infiltration of our election infrastructure and campaigns, along with other pressing issues.
Instead of enjoying and strengthening the protections guaranteed in the Voting Rights Act--people of color, women, LGBTQ individuals, and immigrants--have been given the joyless, exhausting task of fending off the constant barrage of attacks leveled at our communities by Trump and other conspiracy theorists.
Not only are we tasked with reversing the current dismal state of voter suppression against minorities; we are forced to refute the blatant, propagandist lie of voter fraud.
To this end, I have been persistent in my efforts to protect the rights of disenfranchised communities in my district of inner-city Houston and across the nation.
Throughout my tenure in Congress, I have cosponsored dozens of bills, amendments, and resolutions seeking to improve voters' rights at all stages and levels of the election process.
This includes legislation aimed at:
Increasing voter outreach and turnout;
Ensuring both early and same-day registration;
Standardizing physical and language accessibility at polling places;
Expanding early voting periods;
Decreasing voter wait times;
Guaranteeing absentee ballots, especially for displaced citizens;
Modernizing voting technologies and strengthening our voter record systems;
Establishing the federal Election Day as a national holiday; and
Condemning and criminalizing deceptive practices, voter intimidation, and other suppression tactics.
Along with many of my CBC colleagues, I was an original cosponsor of H.R. 9, the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act, which became public law on July 27, 2006.
I also authored H.R. 745 in the 110th Congress, which added the legendary Barbara Jordan to the list of civil rights trailblazers whose memories are honored in the naming of the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act.
This bill strengthened the original Voting Rights Act by replacing federal voting examiners with federal voting observers--a significant enhancement that made it easier to safeguard against racially biased voter suppression tactics.
As noted earlier, in the 114th Congress, I introduced H.R. 75, the Coretta Scott King Mid-Decade Redistricting Prohibition Act of 2015, which prohibits states whose congressional districts have been redistricted after a decennial census from redrawing their district lines until the next census.
Prejudiced redistricting, or gerrymandering as it is more commonly known, has been used for decades to weaken the voting power of African Americans, Latino Americans, and other minorities since the Civil Rights Era.
Immediately after the Shelby County v. Holder ruling, which lifted preclearance requirements for states with histories of discrimination seeking to change their voting laws or practices, redistricting became a favorite tool for Republicans who connived to unfairly gain 3 congressional seats in Texas.
In the 110th Congress, I was the original sponsor of H.R. 6778, the Ex Offenders Voting Rights Act of 2008, which prohibited denial of the right to vote in a federal election on the basts of an individual's status as a formerly incarcerated person.
The Ex-Offenders Voting Rights Act sought to reverse discriminatory voter restrictions that disproportionately affect the African American voting population, which continues to be targeted by mass incarceration, police profiling, and a biased criminal justice system.
Those of us who cherish the right to vote justifiably are skeptical of Voter ID laws because we understand how these laws, like poll taxes and literacy tests, can be used to impede or negate the ability of seniors, racial and language minorities, and young people to cast their votes.
Voter ID laws are just one of the means that can be used to abridge or suppress the right to vote but there are others, including:
Curtailing or Eliminating Early Voting;
Ending Same-Day Registration;
Not counting povisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct on Election Day;
Eliminating Teenage Pre-Registration;
Shortened Poll Hours;
Lessening the standards governing voter challenges used by vigilantes, like the King Street Patriots in my city of Houston, to cause trouble at the polls;
``Voter Caging,'' to suppress the turnout of minority voters by sending non-forwardable mail to targeted populations and, once the mail is returned, using the returned mail to compile lists of voters whose eligibility is then challenged on the basis of residence under state law; and
Employing targeted redistricting techniques to dilute minority voting strength, notably ``Cracking'' (i.e., fragmenting and dispersing concentrations of minority populations); ``Stacking'' ( combining concentrations of minority voters with greater concentrations of white populations); and ``Packing'' (i.e., overconcentrating minority voters in as few districts as possible).
Madam Speaker, we must not allow our democracy to slide back into the worst elements of this country's past, to stand idly by as our treasured values of democracy, progress, and equality are poisoned and dismantled.
I urge all members to join me in voting to pass H.R. 1, the ``For The People Act of 2021.''
Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss the rule governing debate of H.R. 1, the ``For the People Act of 2021,'' which expands access to the ballot box, reduces the influence of big money in politics, and strengthens ethics rules for public servants.
H.R. 1 is intended to increase public confidence in our democracy by reducing the role of money in politics, restoring ethical standards and integrity to government, and strengthening laws to protect voting.
I am particularly proud and appreciative to Chairwoman Lofgren and Congressman Sarbanes that the For The People Act incorporates in Section 2402 of the legislation the Coretta Scott King Mid-Decade Redistricting Prohibition Act that I first offered in 2006 during the Judiciary Committee markup of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 reauthorization and as standalone legislation in the 114th Congress.
This provision, section 2402, prohibits a State that has been redistricted in accordance with this legislation from engaging in redistricting again until after the next decennial apportionment unless required by a court to do so to comply with the Constitution of the United States, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Constitution of the State, or the terms or conditions of this subtitle.
Madam Speaker, this legislation is particularly timely because more than 55 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we are still discussing voter suppression--something which should be a bygone relic of the past, but yet continues to disenfranchise racial minorities, immigrants, women, and young people.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a watershed moment for the Civil Rights Movement--it liberated communities of color from legal restrictions barring them from exercising the fundamental right to civic engagement and political representation.
But uncaged by Supreme Court's infamous 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), which neutered the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, 14 states, including my state of Texas, took extreme measures to enforce new voting restrictions before the 2016 presidential election.
It is not a coincidence that many of these same states have experienced increasing numbers of black and Hispanic voters in recent elections.
If not for invidious, state-sponsored voter suppression policies like discriminatory voter ID laws, reduced early voting periods, and voter intimidation tactics that directly or indirectly target racial minorities, the 2016 presidential election might have had a drastically different outcome.
H.R. 1 expands access to the ballot box by taking aim at institutional barriers to voting.
Let me list some of the salutary features of the legislation that will make it easier for Americans to exercise their right to vote, the most precious right of all because as President Johnson said in securing passage of the Voting Rights Act, the right to vote ``is preservative of all other rights.''
H.R. 1 modernizes the voter registration system by requiring each state to make available online voter registration, correction, cancellation, and designation of party affiliation.
In addition, H.R. 1:
Requires states to permit voters to register on the day of a federal election, including during early voting.
Limits the authority of states to remove registrants from the official list of eligible voters in elections for federal office in the state based on interstate voter registration crosschecks.
Requires states to provide annual reports on voter registration statistics to the Election Assistance Commission.
Provides HAVA funds to implement the voter registration modernization reforms.
Makes it unlawful to hinder, interfere or prevent an individual from registering to vote.
Instructs the Election Assistance Commission to develop best practices for states to deter and prevent such violations.
H.R. 1 explicitly prohibits `voter caging', the pernicious practice of using returned non-forwardable mail as the basis for removing registered voters from the rolls and it prohibits challenges to eligibility from individuals who are not election officials without an oath of good faith factual basis.
Importantly, the legislation prohibits providing false information about elections to hinder or discourage voting and increases penalties for voter intimidation.
I support the declaration in the legislation of the right of citizens to vote in federal elections will not be denied because of a criminal conviction unless a citizen is serving a felony sentence in a correctional facility and it requires states and the federal government to notify individuals convicted of a state or federal felony, respectively, of their reenfranchisement.
H.R. 1 promotes election accuracy, integrity, and security by requiring states to use individual, durable, voter-verified paper ballots and that said ballots be counted by hand or an optical character recognition device and that a voter be given the opportunity to correct his or her ballot should a mistake be made; and it also requires that provisional ballots from eligible voters at incorrect polling places be counted.
The legitimacy and stability of democratic governance is always enhanced by increased voter participation in elections, so I am very pleased that H.R. 1 outlaws many practices resorted to by voting opponents to reduce election participation.
In particular, H.R. 1 requires at least 15 consecutive days of early voting for federal elections and that early voting locations be near public transportation, in rural areas and open for at least 10 hours per day.
Additionally, the legislation prohibits a state from imposing restrictions on an individual's ability to vote by mail and requires a state to carry out a program to track and confirm the receipt of absentee ballots and to make this information available to the voter who cast the ballot.
Also, the bill requires the prepayment of postage on return envelopes for voting materials, which includes any voter registration form, any application for an absentee ballot, and any blank absentee ballot transmitted by mail.
Madam Speaker, another important feature of H.R. 1 is that it promotes voter access by mandating several improvements to election administration, including:
Treating universities as voter registration agencies;
Requiring states to notify an individual, not later than 7 seven days before election, if the individual's polling place has changed;
Requiring states to allow voters to sign sworn affidavits to vote in lieu of presenting photo ID;
Providing accommodations for voters residing in Indian lands;
Ensuring equitable and efficient operation of polling places, reducing long lines and wait times for voters;
Requiring states to provide secured drop boxes for voted absentee ballots in elections for federal office;
Prohibiting states from restricting curbside voting;
Imposing requirements for federal election contingency plans in response to natural disasters and emergencies; and
Clarifying that failure to vote is not grounds for removing registered voters from the rolls.
Of course, nothing in this legislation prohibits or restricts the authority of states to provide greater opportunities for voting, and the bill makes that explicitly clear.
This litany of good measures demonstrates all the many ways and means through which H.R. 1 expands voter participation and election integrity and our experience of the previous four years counsels the urgency of adopting them.
I am much less confident of the ability of one component of the bill--the title mandating creation of ``Independent Redistricting Commissions''--to strengthen our democracy; in fact I believe that title of the legislation should be stricken because of its potential to negatively effective marginalized communities and minority groups.
I am not contending that independent redistricting commissions are an unconstitutional usurpation of authority belonging exclusively to state legislatures; that argument was presented and rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona. Independent Redistricting Commission, 576 U.S. 787 (2015).
Instead, the nation's experience with independent redistricting commissions is still in its early stages and I believe that instead of mandating a one-size fits all approach, Congress should allow further experimentation to occur in the states, the ``laboratories of democracy,'' as they were described by Justice Brandeis in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 (1932).
In addition, it appears to me that the selection process laid out in the bill for choosing members of the independent redistricting commissions is too random and will not result in a commission comprised of members reflective of the communities directly affected by the work of the commission, particularly members of racial and language minorities.
Madam Speaker, the issue of redistricting and how to do it fairly is a never-ending one and, as most political scientists agree, it is virtually impossible to draw most congressional and legislative districts in ways that are competitive; redistricting exacerbates geographical polarization, but it does not create it.
For this reason, unlike the other titles of H.R. 1, I withhold my support for Title II, Subtitle E, Part 2.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source