New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act and the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2007 -- Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

NEW DIRECTION FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE, NATIONAL SECURITY, AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT AND THE RENEWABLE ENERGY AND ENERGY CONSERVATION TAX ACT OF 2007--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - April 01, 2008)

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Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wish to speak to an issue that is all too familiar to my State of Florida but has now taken on such importance that it is a subject that is all too familiar to the entire country, joined by our sister State, Michigan; it is an issue that is sacred to our democracy. It is the issue of the right to vote and to have that vote counted as it was intended.

A year ago, the Florida legislature passed a bill to move Florida's Presidential primary to an early date on the national election calendar. Their thinking was to give our large and diverse State, which is a microcosm of the entire country, more of a say in the selection of Presidential nominees. This violated the two national parties' rules, and the threat was made that if Florida moved ahead, both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee would take away half of Florida's delegates. The Florida legislature, despite that, changed the date of Florida's election by law, moving it 1 week earlier than the imposed deadline by the two national parties.

The Florida legislature is controlled by the Republican Party, and the Democrats in the legislature, through their Democratic leader in the Florida House as well as the Florida Senate, offered an amendment to put the date of the Florida primary back to February 5 so it did not violate the two national party rules. That amendment was defeated. The bill went on to final passage.

In addition to the January 29 date for the Presidential primary, it was primarily a bill about election machines and accountability. So on final passage it was clearly going to be a near unanimous vote. Therefore, the Florida legislature passed and the Republican Governor signed into law the new election date.

I repeat that story because people who want to penalize Florida often miss the fact that it was not Florida Democrats who changed the date. Well, we all know what happened after that. Both national parties decided to punish Florida because those parties' rules reserved the early Presidential contest to a handful of other States.

The Republican National Committee, pursuant to their rules, took away half of Florida's delegation. The Democratic National Committee decided to extract an extra pound of flesh and took away all of the delegates of Florida's delegation.

For 8 months now, I have been immersed in a fight to get the chairman of my party to end the stalemate and to seek Florida's delegates and to honor the January 29 primary vote because on that date we had a historic turnout. Some 3.6 million citizens headed to the polls and cast ballots in Florida's Democratic and Republican Presidential primaries.

For me, it is pretty simple. It is a case of fundamental rights versus party rules. So when there could not be a compromise worked out last August, September, and into October, I sued my own party in Federal district court. In December, the Federal judge ruled against my motion, and at that late date it was too late to appeal.

I have continued to push for my party to find a way to seat a delegation from Florida, while giving Floridians a meaningful voice in the selection of their party's nominee. This fight has been based on the principle that, in America, every citizen has an equal right to vote, it is based on a premise that Floridians are entitled to have their votes count as intended, and it is based on a belief that we all deserve a say in picking our Presidential nominees.

More recently, I, along with others, asked the national Democratic Party to look into paying for a mail-in revote. The party declined. The State party proposed it, few people could agree on the specifics, and certainly the candidates themselves couldn't agree on the specifics. Now we are at a point where reaching a solution is critical. And so when we were last in session, about 2 1/2 weeks ago, I asked the two Democratic candidates, who happened to be on the floor that day when we had the session that lasted most of the night, to consider a proposal whereby they would go back to the original rules of the Democratic Party and seat the delegation with half its vote but still based on the January 29 results. This is allowed by the Democratic rules, as it was done by the GOP.

If nothing else, all this brouhaha we now find ourselves in for this election has certainly provided further evidence our system is broken. Yet as to our right to vote and to have that vote count, there can be no debate. The goal is simple. The principle is very simple: It is one person, one vote.

Last fall, I filed legislation in the Senate to require that no vote be cast for Federal office on a touch-screen voting machine starting in the next Presidential election 4 years from now. I also joined the senior Senator from Michigan, Senator Levin, to propose a system of six rotating interregional primaries, from March to June, in each Presidential election year. Very soon, I am filing a broader based election reform bill, and this new legislation will abolish the electoral college.

It will be a proposed constitutional amendment and will, therefore, give citizens direct election of their President by the popular vote. We have seen in the history of this country a few times when one candidate gets the most votes, but it is the other candidate that wins because of the archaic electoral college process provided in the Constitution. In this new package, it will have the six rotating interregional primaries that will give both large States and small States a fair say in the nomination process.

This legislation will establish early voting in each State to make it easier for the voter to vote, instead of going on 1 day. It will eliminate machines that don't produce a voting paper trail, so if you have to recount, you don't have just a piece of software, you have the actual paper trail in order to be able to do the recount in an accurate way.

This package will allow every qualified voter in every State to cast an absentee ballot on demand. In some States, you can't cast an absentee ballot unless you fill out some affidavit that says you are not going to be in your city on the day of the election, or that you are sick and you can't get to the election. We ought to make it easy for the voter to vote.

The package will also give grants to States that develop mail-in balloting and grants for pilot studies to study secure Internet voting.

We have had too many of these questions arise in my State of Florida over the years, and perhaps this is why Floridians are so sensitive about this. So I am reaching out to my colleagues. I respectfully ask each of the Senators to make suggestions to make this a better bill. Let's remember it was more than 230 years ago that our Founding Fathers declared all men are created equal, but the country still had to wait another 87 years before President Lincoln signed a proclamation freeing the slaves. It took another 57 years before women in America were allowed to vote.

In 1872, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting. After that, she delivered a speech on women's right to vote. ``The ballot,'' she said, ``is the only means of securing the blessings of liberty provided by this government.'' Let me repeat those profound words. ``The ballot,'' Susan B. Anthony said, ``is the only means of securing the blessings of liberty provided by this government.'' Even still, it took another 93 years before our Nation belatedly enacted a law guaranteeing every U.S. citizen an equal right to vote--the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This country cannot afford to wait another 93 years before we fix the flaws we still see in our election system. The blessings of liberty cannot wait. With what we have seen thus far in this election cycle, the time for election reform is now.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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