COCOA Act of 2022

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1396, I call up the bill (S. 3969) to amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to explicitly authorize distribution of grant funds to the voting accessibility protection and advocacy system of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the system serving the American Indian consortium, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S. 3969 in the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in strong support of S. 3969, the PAVA Program Inclusion Act.

The bill before us today is a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation that makes an important technical correction in the Help America Vote Act's Protection and Advocacy for Voting Access, or PAVA, program to explicitly include the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the

system serving the American Indian consortium as eligible recipients of PAVA funding.

When Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002, it made significant changes to the country's voting process, addressing needed improvements to voting systems and voter access identified in the wake of the 2000 election. Since its enactment, Congress has provided billions of dollars under HAVA to help States improve voters' access to the ballot, including hundreds of millions of dollars in election security funds over fiscal years 2018, 2020, and 2022 and $400 million under the CARES Act to help voters access the ballot during the COVID- 19 pandemic.

Amongst the numerous changes made, HAVA recognized the unique obstacles persons with disabilities face at the polls, authorizing funding for the Protection and Advocacy for Voting Access program, otherwise known as PAVA. The PAVA program funds activities aimed at increasing access to the polls and the ballot for voters with disabilities, ensuring they have access to all aspects of the voting process, and awarding funding to eligible protection and advocacy systems across the country.

Since HAVA's enactment, the millions of dollars in funding allocated under the PAVA program allows protection and advocacy systems across the country to conduct activities such as disability training for poll workers, maintaining voting hotlines, examining polling places for accessibility, and even more.

There are 57 protection and advocacy systems across the 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, as well as the American Indian consortium. The P&A affiliated with the American Indian consortium serves Native Americans with disabilities in the Four Corners region of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah.

P&As are federally mandated and protect the rights of persons with disabilities through legally based advocacy. Unfortunately, HAVA's definition excluded the protection and advocacy systems serving the Northern Mariana Islands and the American Indian consortium serving the Four Corners region. I don't think we intended that, and this bill fixes that.

Reintroduced this Congress by our colleague, Representative Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and our former House colleague, Senator Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, S. 3969 puts the P&As serving the Northern Mariana Islands and the American Indian consortium on equal footing with all 55 other P&As. It does so without changing the program's overall authorization level or other elements of the program.

Fixing this oversight will help ensure all voters with disabilities, regardless of where they live, can fully participate in the electoral process.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter signed by all 57 protection and advocacy systems expressing support for the bill, as well as a letter of support from the National Disability Rights Network and a letter from the designated protection and advocacy systems in California and Illinois, all supporting this bill's package.

January 28, 2020.

Representative Zoe Lofgren,

Chairwoman, House Administration Committee, Washington, DC.

Representative Rodney Davis,

Ranking Member, House Administration Committee, Washington,

Mr. Speaker, language making this correction has passed the House twice this Congress in other legislation, and it should be enacted into law.

The Senate passed this bill by unanimous consent in March, and passing it in the House today will ensure that it will go to the President's desk to become law.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego), the proponent of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

We have agreement on this bill from the Senate, and that is a good thing. I should note that we have had discussions, primarily at a staff level, on the election observer measure mentioned by the ranking member and Mr. Steil. We continue to evaluate the proposal, but we found a few concerns. I will mention them now. It is not arbitrary.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Reclaiming my time. My staff indicates that there have been discussions. Obviously, that was at a staff level. But I have outlined what the concerns are, and I would at this point like to close so that we can let the House get to its other business.

To go on suspension, both sides of the aisle need to agree, and I think that is a very important provision of our procedures that will continue, whichever party is in the majority, and that was how this ended up. Because that bill really is not necessarily connected with this PAVA bill. I will talk about another bill that is not connected with the PAVA bill, and that is the venue bill I mentioned earlier this morning.

I forgot to mention, and I put it into the Record last night, that the Progressive Policy Institute, as well as the chamber of commerce, opposes that venue provision. I do think the fact that Senator Cruz, Senator Cotton, Senator Hawley, Mr. Buck and Mr. Gaetz are for it doesn't persuade me that it is a safe measure to move forward to, even though I very much support the Neguse bill. If this does not pass today, I am sure the Neguse bill will come back because we do need resources to enforce our antitrust laws. I am totally on board with that.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that we will pass this bill from the Senate that will protect disabled voters in the Northern Mariana Islands and the American Indian consortium, that they will have the same access to funding as all the others, and I urge support.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is a different day here on the House floor for a debate over a bill with Committee on House Administration jurisdiction. I once again agree with the majority that this is a good piece of legislation, albeit I was a little concerned when my colleague just mentioned that officials in California and Illinois support this bill. I had to take a step back and realize, well, maybe I will talk to my team about who those officials are before I offer my wholehearted support.

But in all seriousness, Mr. Speaker, as part of the Help America Vote Act created in 2002, Congress authorized funding for the Protection and Advocacy for Voting Access program to help ensure every eligible American, regardless of their abilities, can participate in the election process and cast their ballot privately and independently.

Funds for the PAVA program are currently allocated to only 55 of 57 legally established protection and advocacy systems across the country. The bill today makes an important correction to ensure that both the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the American Indian consortium are included as eligible recipients for the first time.

This bill, as mentioned by my colleague, sponsored by my good friend, Senator Roy Blunt, passed the Senate by unanimous consent, and Republicans on the Committee on House Administration are supportive of these changes and have no issues with the bill.

To be honest, I am somewhat disappointed that my colleagues in the majority on the Committee on House Administration have chosen not to pass this bill under suspension. For months, our staffs have been working together to pair the PAVA Program Inclusion Act with H.R. 8517, the Confirmation of Congressional Observer Access Act, a noncontroversial bill brought forward by Subcommittee on Elections Ranking Member Bryan Steil.

Both bills make nonpartisan, noncontroversial amendments to HAVA. Mr. Steil's bill doesn't change Federal law or practice but simply provides a citation of convenience for existing law that gives the House authority to deploy official observers to watch the conduct of congressional elections in the States and territories.

Both Democrats and Republicans have long deployed House staff as election observers to monitor congressional elections. Sometimes, our observers have had access difficulties, including in a widely publicized event in Maricopa County, Arizona, 2 years ago.

So, we listened when many State and local election officials asked Congress to speak more clearly about this constitutional exercise so they can more readily provide access for our observers, which is why our committee staffs had agreed in principle to move both bills together.

That was until just a few weeks ago when the Democrats' staff said they had issues. But when my staff reached out, they couldn't say what those issues were and met my staff with silence.

We gave Democrats another opportunity to bring these bills up together during Rules Committee earlier this week when Mr. Steil offered an amendment to include his election observer bill, but it was rejected along party lines.

Now, we are here on the House floor talking about a bill that should have passed under suspension alongside Congressman Steil's commonsense bill to ensure integrity and faith in our elections.

While I will support the bill before us today, I urge my Democrat colleagues in the majority to quickly bring forward the Confirmation of Congressional Observer Access Act for a vote, as well.

I was encouraged by comments earlier this week at the Committee on

Rules by my good friend, the chair of the Subcommittee on Elections, Congressman G.K. Butterfield, about Mr. Steil's good piece of legislation and continue to hope we can work together on a bipartisan basis to make it law.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Steil), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, could I make a quick point of personal privilege?

Is there any way to get the time of that ``magic minute'' this time? I want to sign a printout from the Congressional Record for my good friend from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to ask Majority Leader Hoyer about his time.

I have somewhat become used to being the antagonist to some of the majority's legislation when it comes to election administration, which I think has been so shortsighted on its impact to the American people. But this is one of those opportunities where we see good legislation come from the Senate, and this is an opportunity for us to show the American people that Republicans and Democrats can get along and pass important bills that are going to positively impact those who are disabled, and ensure that every single person who may be dealing with a disability in this country and in our territories has the right to vote, the eligibility to vote, and the opportunity to vote. That is what this bill does.

Really, I have got to thank again my colleague, Roy Blunt, Senator Blunt, who used to be in leadership in this institution, as many of us know and remember so well. I thank him for bringing Republicans and Democrats on the House Administration Committee and Leader Hoyer and I together on this very important issue.

I wish he would have come in earlier on some other issues, we might have had a little more bipartisan agreement. I will have to talk to him about that and ask him why he didn't do that.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friends, Leader Hoyer and Chairperson Lofgren, and I thank the staff for pushing this important bill forward.

I am disappointed and optimistic that we did not get the election observer fixes that both parties want and need and election administrators throughout the country have asked us to address. I am disappointed that was not part of a suspension agreement, where this bill should have been. I am cautiously optimistic with the great opportunity for bipartisanship that we are seeing here today that maybe it can continue after today. I won't hold my breath, but I will continue to remain optimistic and, hopefully, see that moving forward very quickly.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Steil for his remarks, and I thank Leader Hoyer and, also, again, my good friend, Mr. Blunt, for all their hard work.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

This is the first time we have heard these concerns, on the House floor today. We have not had any discussion between our staffs. I would have loved to have worked through some of these.

Mr. Speaker, I would indicate to Chair Lofgren that perhaps we can yield to the ranking member because he would like to yield me 1 minute, I am sure.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. I was the sponsor of HAVA. Republicans were in charge, and I worked very closely with my friend Bob Ney on HAVA. It was legislation that was called by The Washington Post as the greatest reform legislation in 25 years since the civil rights bill. That may have been some hyperbole, but it was a good bill.

This bill corrects, essentially, a fault that we made in terms of its inclusiveness. The bill before us concerns two critical objectives that have been central to my work here in the House.

The first is ensuring that those with disabilities have equal access to the same opportunities as their fellow Americans. On July 26, we celebrated the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act signed by President George H.W. Bush, a very bipartisan piece of legislation that has made a historical difference.

The second is ensuring that all eligible voters in America have access to the ballot box and can make their voices heard in our democracy. That is, after all what our democracy is about.

The PAVA Program Inclusion Act helps accomplish both of those goals, and that is why I am proud to bring it to the floor today.

Specifically, this bill would improve access to the ballot for Americans with disabilities who live in the Northern Mariana Islands-- clearly, we want those included--and our Native American Tribal lands in the Four Corners region of the southwest, which we also expected we had done.

This bill expands key programs first laid out in the Help America Vote Act, also known as HAVA, that provided funding to regional protection and advocacy systems to assist people with disabilities in the voting process.

Although HAVA intended to provide funding for this important purpose to all protection and advocacy systems across the country, a technical oversight, as has been mentioned, led to the exclusion of these two regions. Today's legislation would correct that error and help us realize HAVA's original vision.

I was proud to serve as the principal House sponsor, as I said, of HAVA back in 2002 along with Bob Ney, who was the Republican chair of the House Administration Committee and a very good friend of mine. We are prepared to celebrate its 20th anniversary later this month. I am glad to see that the groundbreaking law continues to evolve and be strengthened by Congress.

HAVA was based on the principle that the integrity of our democracy depends on the accessibility and accuracy of our electoral system. I brought together a bipartisan coalition to enact that legislation in order to establish a number of commonsense policies that make voting easier and more secure, from reliable voting equipment to expanded provisional ballot access, HAVA and the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission--which I strongly support, and I am glad to see that we are investing in--make our Federal participation more broad and more effective.

Today's bill reminds us, however, that HAVA must continue to adapt to new needs and challenges. I very much appreciate the efforts of Chair Zoe Lofgren, the gentlewoman from California, who has worked so hard on voting rights issues as head of the House Administration Committee, and I thank the ranking member Mr. Davis, as well. I thank Senator Lujan, our former House colleague, for authoring this bill and advancing it through the Senate.

We must do everything in our power to ensure that people with disabilities, especially those from historically marginalized groups such as Native Americans and Pacific Islanders, can participate equally and fully in our democracy.

Mr. Speaker, that is why I ask all of my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 3969, the ``Protection and Advocacy for Voting Access Program Inclusion Act'' which would remedy a specific situation to ensure that citizens who have the right to vote can do so without having to worry about barriers.

Voting is a fundamental right that belongs to ALL citizens of the United States. In 2002, former President Bush signed into law the Help America Vote Act of 2002, also known as HAVA, to upgrade aspects of states' election procedures. It amended state plans and reporting, accessibility, and voting system standards.

While the Help America Vote Act of 2002 intended to accomplish voter accessibility and encouraging voting across the nation by addressing the accessibility issues most United States citizens face, it failed to cover the entire population adequately.

Specifically, HAVA did not address the needs of certain nonmainland territories, ultimately resulting in certain communities being unable to participate in the foundational right that our democracy is built on.

The Northern Mariana Islands and American Indian Consortium have limited accessibility in voting, as they are not currently protected by the HAVA.

The Protection and Advocacy for Voting Access Program Inclusion Act, also known as PAVA Inclusion Act, aims to amend the Help

America Vote Act of 2002 by introducing the State Definition initialized in the Development Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 2000 which allows the Help America Vote of 2002 to cover Northern Mariana Islands citizens.

Additionally, this bill seeks to establish a system to serve the American Indian Consortium, granting them protection under the HAVA act in a similar manner to a State as mentioned prior.

With these two communities protected by PAVA, they will now receive the much-requested grants that will enable them to meet the voting needs of their citizens. With these grants, systems will be able to overcome voter obstacles such as any language barriers.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my fellow Congressmembers to vote in support of the PAVA Inclusion Act. Without the PAVA Inclusion Act, eligible voters residing on the Northern Mariana Islands and in the American Indian Consortium are faced with unsurmountable challenges in exercising their rights to vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on my and Senator Lujan's bill, the PAVA Program Inclusion Act.

This bill is based on a simple principle that every American should have equal access to vote, no matter where they are from.

S. 3969 makes a long-overdue fix to the Protection and Advocacy for Voting Access program to improve voting access for Native and rural voters with disabilities in Arizona, the Four Corners region, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

The PAVA program was first passed 20 years ago to break down barriers that Americans with disabilities face while exercising the most sacred right of all Americans, the right to vote. This program improves ADA compliance at polling locations, voting procedures for blind or deaf Americans, and training for poll workers to help Americans with disabilities cast their votes.

Unfortunately, due to an oversight in the original Help America Vote Act, voters with disabilities in the Northern Mariana Islands and in the rural, largely Tribal Four Corners region of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado were not included in this critical program.

That means for years, Americans with disabilities living in these regions have not received the investments they need to ensure they can access the ballot.

That is especially hard in northeast Arizona, which is largely Indian Country, where voters already often travel hours to get to the polling location, sometimes to find that it is not accessible to them. That must change.

This bill is a necessary step to bring resources to Native and other rural voters with disabilities who are trying to do their civic duty.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge all of my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, to vote ``yes'' and reaffirm the importance of voting access to everyone in our democracy.