Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, growing up in East St. Louis, both my mom and dad worked for the railroads. We weren't wealthy, but we had a comfortable life. I have come to learn how connected that was to our being a union family. I believe that more than any other force in American history, the American labor movement has created middle-class opportunity in America. Unions have won victories that have allowed American workers to buy homes, send their kids to college, and save for retirement. I know firsthand that none of this would be possible if workers did not have the freedom to advocate for fair working conditions for themselves and their families.

That is why I am proud to say that Chicago is the hometown of the American Labor Movement, the site of the Haymarket Affair, the Pullman railroad strike, and the Republic Steel Strike. Today, Chicago's union members continue to be students of history and recognize the struggles of those who fought for fairness, justice, and equality at work. Throughout its 125-year history, the Chicago Federation of Labor--CFL-- has consistently fought for fair treatment of workers in Chicago, Cook County, and beyond. Though the people, challenges, and times may have changed, the CFL's mission has remained firm. Throughout its history, the CFL has organized workers across industries regardless of race, ethnicity, or nationality. Today, we celebrate the great work of the Chicago Federation of Labor and congratulate its staff and supporters on its 125th anniversary.

The Chicago Federation of Labor was chartered in 1896 by the American Federation of Labor. Formed, in part, as an attempt to end corruption in Chicago's labor unions, the CFL focused its early efforts on strengthening a unified voice for the city's labor movements, upholding the labor rights of its union members, and mediating contract disputes on behalf of local unions. In 1906, Irish immigrant John Fitzpatrick was elected president of the CFL. An organizer and committed unionist, his innovation ushered in an era of stability and reform to the union community. During his 40-year tenure as president, Fitzpatrick created accessible news publications and established the labor party.

Upon Fitzpatrick's death, William Lee, president of Bakery Drivers Union Local 734 and vice president of the CFL, was elected president and would go on to serve for nearly 40 years. Lee continued Fitzpatrick's commitment to racial and social justice, as the CFL and other labor organizations supported Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in organizing his visits to and rallies in Chicago. In 1964, then-CFL President Lee celebrated the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the front page of the Federation News, writing, ``[W]e have come closer to the ideal of the Declaration of independence with the Civil Rights Law.''

In its fight for justice for all workers, the CFL has welcomed freedom fighters and labor leaders from around the world to Chicago, including Cesar Chavez, Lech Walesa, and Nelson Mandela. In 1994, under the leadership of President Don Turner, the CFL launched its Workers' Assistance Committee, now the CFL Workforce and Community Initiative, which provides job seekers, including veterans and low-income workers, with training and job search resources. In recent years, the CFL has worked to pass increases to the minimum wage, paid sick leave, protections to retirement security, and a host of other policies to protect workers.

While in Congress, I have had the pleasure of working with the CFL on a variety of issues. Just this year, I was honored to work with current CFL President Bob Reiter on the inclusion of a 100 percent coverage for COBRA health insurance premiums as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, helping millions of struggling workers to remain on their employer health plans.

The blueprint created 125 years ago has evolved, but the mission of the CFL has remained constant. Today, with nearly 300 affiliates and 500,000 union members in Chicago and Cook County, the CFL continues to embody the ethos of practical idealism and unrelenting determination for working people.

Congratulations to the Chicago Federation of Labor on 125 years of great work, giving workers a support network to advocate for their rights.

(At the request of Mr. Thune, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak as if in morning business.

Madam President, today, the Senate Judiciary Committee released a report after an investigation of the circumstances surrounding Donald Trump's efforts to take over the Justice Department during the closing days of the last calendar year and beginning of this year.

Since January, the Committee has investigated reports that White House officials, including the President himself, pressed the Department of Justice to support President Trump's unsubstantiated bids to overturn the 2020 election results, and that Acting Civil Division Assistant AG Jeffrey Clark aided in that effort.

Today's interim staff report sheds new light on former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Jeffrey Clark became Donald Trump's Big Lie lawyer, pressuring his colleagues in the Department of Justice to force an overturn of the 2020 election.

Let me put this in perspective. The election was in November. The results were announced. Most of the world accepted it, but the former President, Donald Trump, never did. He filed a succession of lawsuits to prove that the election had been stolen. He failed in every effort in court. That was stage one.

Having failed in court with some of the most outlandish theories imaginable, but considered normal for the likes of Rudy Giuliani, they went into the second phase. The second phase was to coerce the Department of Justice and the Attorney General to intervene in the election results and to reach out directly, as the President did himself personally, to the election officials in States where he thought he should have won but he didn't.

So all that effort was under way when William Barr, President Trump's Attorney General at the time, issued a statement saying there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the election. That was disappointing to the President.

It occurred that in the middle of December of last year, William Barr, the Attorney General, announced that he was going to resign as of December 23. A man was chosen as the Acting Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen, and Richard Donoghue as Deputy Attorney General.

There was a full court press on at that time by President Trump and his supporters to influence Jeffrey Rosen into intervening into this election contest. When I say ``full court press,'' I am talking about repeated telephone calls and meetings in the White House over a period of 2 weeks.

This report, which we have brought to the attention of the public, as well as members of the Committee, obviously, went into detail as to what happened during that 2-week period of time. It was an incredible moment, which most Americans didn't even know was going on. We were a half step away from a full-blown constitutional crisis because what the President was trying to do was to convince the Attorney General to contact the leaders in the States where he thought--the President thought he had won the election and to tell them to not certify the results and to pick an alternative set of electors in some instances.

In each of these cases, the President was--President Trump--pushing a theory on why he actually won. These theories went from crazy to silly, to outlandish.

Let me give you one of them. It was called Italy-gate. I hope you caught this one because, naturally, Rudy Giuliani was somehow involved with this--some notion that Italian satellites were intercepting the voting machines in America and changing the results against Donald Trump. That is the nature of things.

In the State of Georgia, the President and his supporters were arguing that they have videotapes proving that people brought in suitcases full of ballots, and they showed these videotapes. The election officials in Georgia--which, I might add, all Republican-- countered that by saying that those were actual containers of ballots and that was the ordinary process; there was nothing sinister going on there.

State after State, case after case, Trump was making the argument that he was cheated out of the election--which, of course, was false, but he still believes it to this day--and putting the pressure on Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to be complicit in this plot. He even asked him to consider filing a special case in the Supreme Court across the street to stop the election results from being certified.

Our report shows that Jeffrey Rosen and his Deputy, Richard Donoghue, resisted this from the start. Jeffrey Clark, another Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division who had nothing, literally, to do with this matter on a legal basis, were in conflict from that point--Clark, on the side of Trump, saying that the letters to the States should be issued, and Rosen and Donoghue arguing that there was no basis in fact, no proof of election fraud that could warrant that kind of unprecedented action.

In the meantime, many other players, like Mark Meadows in the White House, were also pressuring the Department of Justice. The net result of it was a fateful day--I believe it was January 3 of this year--when the President called Rosen, Donoghue, and Clark to the White House to pursue his effort to replace Rosen with Clark, a more complicit person in the process.

At that moment, two things happened that were significant. The White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone, dissented from the President's position and said it was a murder-suicide pact for him to engage in this. Secondly, at that point, the eight leading officials in the Department of Justice all said that they would resign en masse if there was a replacement of the Acting Attorney General by Mr. Clark.

The President hesitated and decided at the very last minute not to pursue that course, not to replace him. That was significant, I will tell you, because had it happened otherwise, there would have been a possibility that there would have been a contest on the election results.

What did the President do next after deciding that? Well, just for good measure, he ended up forcing the resignation of the U.S. attorney in Georgia who refused to buy his outlandish claims. It was the President's way of protesting that particular U.S. attorney's--Mr. Cox--independence in the situation.

What followed? We know what followed. In a matter of 3 days, this President, former President, desperate in his situation, having failed in every court case, having failed to take over the Department of Justice, decided to take his cause to the streets. We saw it in the U.S. Capitol 3 days later on January 6. The President turned loose a mob--a mob that was supposed to stop us from counting the electoral votes and electoral ballots.

Most people say: Well, we heard most of this story before, so what is the point of it? The point of it is that we were so close to a constitutional crisis at that moment that it bears continued investigation and disclosure so the

American people know that we should never be complacent when it comes to our rights as citizens and to our responsibilities to our Constitution.

This President, former President Donald Trump, would have shredded the Constitution to keep his office in the Presidency. There is no doubt in my mind.

To think that we reached that stage in history is certainly worth reflection for a moment. What more should we do going forward to make certain that we protect this democracy from the likes of Donald Trump or any of his successors in interest? That, I think, is a major responsibility that we face.

I hope this report from the Senate Judiciary Committee will reopen the conversation. I hope as well that the select committee of the House on the January 6 occurrence, the mob insurrection here at the Capitol-- we submitted this evidence to them. I hope it is a benefit to them as they move forward.

I certainly hope that, on a bipartisan basis, we can decide that the ordinary course of action with a valid, legal election deciding the future of this country is always the best route in a democracy.

Madam President, there has been a controversy going on the last several years which has really been to the detriment of many good people.

In 2007, Congress made a promise to college students. Here is what we said 14 years ago: If you will give us 10 years of life in public service and you make your student loan payments during that 10-year period of time, at the end of it, America will forgive the remainder of your student debt.

We said that, and more than a million people took us up on the promise. They passed up perhaps higher salaries in more lucrative professions in order to serve the country. Then they discovered at the end of the 10-year period that the loan forgiveness they were promised wasn't coming. Nearly 99 percent of those who applied under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program were denied relief, often for superficial clerical errors, loan servicing mistakes, or other matters beyond their control.

Well, good news: Those days of broken promises are over. Yesterday, the Biden administration announced important changes to this program to help hundreds of thousands of borrowers finally get the relief we promised over 10 years ago. The Education Department estimates the changes will immediately erase the debt of 22,000 borrowers, more than the total number of loans that have been forgiven so far under the program. All told, more than 550,000 borrowers could see a reduction in the amount of additional time they make in payments.

Servicemembers whose loans were deferred while they were on Active Duty will have those periods of duty applied towards payments, as they should be. This is good news, and it is long overdue.

Many of my Democratic colleagues and I tried for 4 years during the Trump administration to fix this program. They ignored us. So I want to thank President Biden and Education Secretary Cardona for following through on their commitment to fix this important program and recognize the essential work of these public servants who sacrifice for this country and for the people who live here and should receive what we promised--helping hands on their student loans.

Madam President, on another matter, today, President Biden is traveling to Chicago. He arrives with a simple message: Vaccines work.

In Illinois and across the country, vaccine mandates are saving lives and allowing life to return closer to normal. Over the past month, our State has experienced a nearly 40-percent decrease in new COVID cases. We are seeing similar trends around the country.

In the months since the Biden administration announced its policy requiring the majority of Americans to get vaccinated, the United States has finally begun to turn the corner against the delta variant. Over the past 2 weeks--2 weeks--our Nation has seen a roughly 25- percent decrease in new COVID infections. Hospitalizations have decreased by 20 percent, and deaths are down as well.

In Illinois, we are proud to support the Biden vaccine policy. In fact, some of the biggest employers in our State were ahead of the curve. In early July, Loyola Medicine in Chicago was one of the first health systems in America to implement the vaccine requirement. In August, United Airlines, based in Chicago, announced it would require its employees to get vaccinated.

At the time, skeptics questioned whether this would lead to mass resignations or labor shortages. They predicted chaos. Well, much to the dismay of the doomsayers, as of yesterday, more than 99 percent of United Airlines' employees in America have rolled up their sleeves and gotten vaccinated. Every major airline in the country has followed United's lead and introduced a vaccine requirement. This means safer skies for passengers and crew members. It is another big step back to normal.

Unfortunately, not everyone is on board with this science-driven approach. Earlier this week, one of my colleagues from Wisconsin took the floor and made some unfortunate and irresponsible statements about the safety of coronavirus vaccines. This false information, unfortunately, may mislead some people. Senator Johnson decided to bring an argument from a Facebook comment section to the floor of the Senate.

So let me say this: More than 700,000 Americans have now died from coronavirus. That is more than the number of Americans who have died in every war since the Civil War combined.

We have the power to prevent more needless deaths from this disease in the form of three remarkably safe and effective vaccines. Fully vaccinated individuals are 10 times less likely to die from COVID, 10 times less likely to be hospitalized, and far less likely to spread the virus.

The strong majority of Americans agree with President Biden's actions. Importantly, the administration's vaccine mandate is saving lives while also providing commonsense exceptions for those limited numbers of people who have medical or religious reasons.

The fact is, the President's vaccine policy is constitutional, evidence-based, and it is what America needs to once and for all put this pandemic behind us.

Still, some of our colleagues continue to oppose it.

Yesterday, the senior Senator from Utah once again introduced legislation that would do away with the President's vaccine policy. It would also allow anyone to sue the government or their employers for any perceived harm from vaccine requirements. What that harm might be is unclear.

Can you imagine the chaos in our courtrooms if the Senator from Utah has his way? Well, you don't have to imagine too hard because some States have already shown us the deadly cost of taking a stand against public health.

There are several States in our country that both threaten to sue the Biden administration and enact the policies on their own to ban vaccine and mask mandates. They include Texas, Florida, Utah, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Georgia. The leaders in these States have gone to extraordinary lengths to stymie public health efforts to save lives.

How has that worked out for these States? What has this dangerous, deadly policy of opposing vaccines and masks meant in those States?

Take a look at the map here.

This was the deadly cost of resisting science and vaccines between July 1 of this year and October 1. Of the 6 States--Texas, Florida, Utah, Arizona, South Carolina, and Georgia--their infection rates per 100,000 people was 4,441 compared to the rest of the country at 2,548 per 100,000. The death rate, sadly, was 54 per 100,000 in these 6 States, 20 in the rest of the country.

I bring this chart to the floor to make it clear that taking a political position is not about polling and deciding what sounds popular to so many people. It is about the life-and-death reality we face with this virus and this pandemic.

These leaders are arguing for a position against vaccines and against masks, and look who is paying the price: the men and women who live in

their States, who are facing higher infection rates and, sadly, dramatically higher death rates because of it. It is time for them to accept the reality that vaccines are safe and effective and that they work.

These States have reported almost twice as many coronavirus infections as the rest of the country and, tragically, nearly three times as many deaths. Lawmakers in these States have chosen a political course rather than one that makes common sense or cares for the well- being of their people.

Our Nation's healthcare professionals are exhausted. You would be, too, if you had to battle the virus every day for 18 months. Now they are threatened with another deadly public health crisis: COVID disinformation from politicians. Doctors and nurses and healthcare workers are being threatened by the virus, and the patients, sadly, who carry it or those who don't believe COVID even exists.

What makes this all the more troubling is that some of the biggest peddlers of disinformation about vaccines have taken steps to protect themselves from the coronavirus.

Allow me to give you exhibit A.

Nearly every night, Tucker Carlson appears on FOX News and distributes bogus information to hundreds of thousands of households across America. Tucker Carlson is the biggest anti-vax quack in America.

But while Tucker is quick to question the science behind masks and vaccines, what he won't tell you is that, every day, he has to comply with a vaccine policy at FOX News. That is right. FOX News requires every one of its employees to disclose their vaccination status. According to ABC News, more than 90 percent of FOX Network's employees have been vaccinated. The remaining 10 percent are required to get tested every single day.

Sound familiar, the FOX policy? It is the same thing Joe Biden has asked for nationwide that many Republicans come to the floor and scream about every day and then turn on FOX News for their information.

So, while there is little ideological overlap between the heads of FOX News and the officials in the Biden administration, they both recognize one undeniable truth: Vaccine mandates are the key to ending this pandemic.

I thank President Biden for showing the world that Chicago is leading the way in putting the pandemic behind us. If we want to save lives, jump-start the economy, get kids back in school, all I can say is three words: Follow the science; stop villainizing public health officials; and start encouraging every American to do their part in, finally, ending this pandemic.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), is necessarily absent.

Madam President, last night, a Federal judge in Texas did what the U.S. Supreme Court should have done. He issued an injunction blocking Texas' clearly unconstitutional bounty hunter abortion ban from being enforced while challenges to the law make their way through the courts. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman came in response to a challenge of the Texas ban brought by the Federal Department of Justice.

The Texas abortion law, known as S.B. 8, is the most restrictive abortion law in the Nation and the most serious challenge to Roe v. Wade in 50 years. It was deliberately crafted to outlaw most abortions while allowing State lawmakers to evade judicial review. It deputizes private citizens to enforce the ban by suing anyone who ``aids and abets'' a woman seeking an abortion. And it offers rewards of $10,000 or more to plaintiffs who bring suits.

In his ruling, Judge Pitman wrote that Texas politicians had ``contrived an unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme'' that has ``unlawfully prevented [women in Texas] from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution.''

The Supreme Court order allowing the Texas law to take effect was a product of the Court's ``shadow docket'' of cases that are decided without full briefing or oral arguments--and without transparency or accountability.

The 5-4 order, from the Court's conservative majority, was criticized by some of the Court's own members, including Chief Justice John Roberts, who warned that Texas lawmakers had created a ``model for action,'' that other States could copy to undermine constitutionally protected rights.

The Chief Justice was right. Since the Court's ruling on S.B. 8, elected officials and political candidates in a number of States have vowed to introduce similar abortion bans.

With Judge Pitman's wise ruling last night, that rush to use citizen bounty hunters to avoid legal accountability while denying the constitutional rights of women and perhaps others is on hold--at least for now. But the threat to constitutional rights remains. Texas has already filed a notice of appeal in the conservative Fifth Circuit.

Abortion providers remain at risk of facing bounty hunter lawsuits if they perform abortions prohibited by the ban while the injunction is in place. Anti-choice organizations have vowed to be ``vigilant'' in suing individuals retroactively if the order is reversed.

I hope that justice--and the Constitution--will prevail in the coming days as this litigation continues. The fundamental rights of millions of Texans are at stake.

Madam President, today, the Senate will consider Sarah Merriam's nomination to be a United States District Judge for the District of Connecticut. I support the nomination of this highly qualified jurist.

As a U.S. magistrate judge for over 6 years, Judge Merriam has presided over hundreds of matters, including a number of trials that proceeded to final judgment. She has proven herself to be evenhanded, impartial, and mindful of the limited role that judges play in our system of justice.

Judge Merriam also has extensive experience litigating in Federal court--both in private practice and as an assistant Federal defender for nearly 8 years.

Letters of support the Judiciary Committee received for Judge Merriam's nomination underscore the widespread respect she has earned for her skill, qualifications, temperament, and fidelity to the rule of law. The letters came from both Democrats and Republicans and from prosecutors and defense attorneys.

Two Republican attorneys who practice law in Connecticut--Ross Garber, who has worked for numerous Republican officials, and Stanley Twardy, Jr., who served as U.S. Attorney in Connecticut under President Reagan--wrote: ``We are former advisors and appointees of Republican officials and have been involved in the selection and vetting of judges. Today we write in unqualified support of the nomination of Magistrate Judge Sarah Merriam to serve as a judge on the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.''

They added, ``As a magistrate judge, Judge Merriam has been a significant and valuable part of the life of the District Court in Connecticut. As a United States District Judge she will be a rare asset to the District and the judiciary as a whole.''

The Judiciary Committee also received a letter from 26 former Federal prosecutors who served in the District of Connecticut. Among them are three former U.S. Attorneys.

These former prosecutors praised Judge Merriam as a ``highly qualified and competent jurist'' who ``applies the law fairly and properly without regard to personal preference.''

They concluded with their assurance that Judge Merriam ``will serve with distinction and honor'' in the District of Connecticut.

Judge Merriam was unanimously rated ``Well Qualified'' by the American Bar Association.

She has the strong support of her home State Senators--Senators Blumenthal and Murphy--and she received bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee, with Senators Tillis and Graham joining the Democratic members in supporting her nomination.

I urge my colleagues to join me voting in support of Judge Merriam's nomination.

Vote on Merriam Nomination

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I want to thank the majority leader for his encouraging and kind words and especially thank my friend and former chair of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, for inviting other colleagues to come to the floor to speak in support of the right to vote.

Time and again in history, we have asked men and women to stand and risk their lives and, in fact, give their lives for the most fundamental premise of our democracy: the right to vote. They have fought. They have bled. They have died for that right.

Now it is under attack again--not from any foreign source. Over the past few years, our Nation has witnessed the most heavily coordinated assault on the right to vote in modern memory. Since the start of 2021, Republican legislators throughout the country have introduced over 425 pieces of legislation with provisions to make it more difficult for Americans to vote. Thirty-three of these laws were actually enacted in 19 States. Some of these laws have set new limits on voting by mail; others cut hours for polling locations. Each of these proposals is designed to achieve the same outcome: create barriers for Americans when it comes to the ballot box.

One of the strongest champions of democracy in American history was my old friend and colleague John Lewis of Georgia. Days before his passing, John wrote: ``Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.''

It is now this generation's turn to act, John, because nothing less than the survival of America's democracy is at stake.

At a moment when lawmakers across the country are railing around the Big Lie to strip away our constitutional rights, we in this Senate must have the courage to step up and protect those rights. If the supporters of the former President of the United States are going to defame our democracy, we have to fight to defend it. We can begin by reinvigorating one of the most important pieces of legislation in modern American history: the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I am sure there are folks who are watching this at home, saying: Wait a minute. How can a piece of legislation signed into law more than 50 years ago be the solution to today's challenge to democracy?

That is because over the past several years, there has been a sustained effort to chip away at the protections guaranteed to every American under that Voting Rights Act.

For instance, in 2013, the Supreme Court issued the decision in Shelby County v. Holder, essentially nullifying a key provision in the Voting Rights Act, section 5. Prior to the Court's ruling in Shelby, section 5 required that localities with a track record of disenfranchising voters of color through tactics as brutal as poll taxes and literacy tests would have to seek Federal approval for changes they make in their voting rules. This requirement is known as preclearance, and it could have prevented many of the restrictive voting provisions being enacted in States like Georgia and Texas today.

Just this past summer, the Supreme Court weakened another section of the Voting Rights Act with its decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.

With these wrongful rulings, the Supreme Court has fueled State-led efforts to suppress voters, particularly voters of color. In fact, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent to Brnovich that ``in the last decade, this Court has treated no statute worse'' than the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It is time for Congress to uphold our constitutional obligation and restore the Voting Rights Act to its full potential. That is why we join together today to introduce a bill that would not only restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act but strengthen them.

Tomorrow, we will hold a hearing on this critical legislation in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is called the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. By all means, passing this law should be a bipartisan endeavor. Historically, it always was. It wasn't until very recently that the Republicans--the party of Abraham Lincoln--decided that they would no longer join in our effort to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. It wasn't that long ago that it was bipartisan and passed easily. The last time Congress voted to do so, in fact, the Republican minority leader, Senator McConnell, came to the floor and said: ``This is a piece of legislation which has worked.''

Well, let's make sure we keep it working for America. In our Nation, there is no freedom more fundamental than the right to vote, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act will help ensure that every American can exercise that right that he famously called the ``precious, almost sacred'' right.

I want to thank Senator Leahy, Senator Blumenthal, and my colleague Senator Warnock for joining us on the floor and a number of our colleagues for the collaboration and hard work on preparing this legislation for introduction and our House colleagues who passed their version of the bill earlier this summer.

I particularly want to thank the man for whom this bill is named. I was honored to count him as a friend--even more when he came in on more than one occasion at my invitation to campaign in the State of Illinois. I was honored to join him on a Sunday morning walk, which I will never forget, over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, John and I talking about that moment in history. It is something I will treasure for a lifetime.

We, in his name, need to honor him and to honor the principles that he gave his life for, making certain that everyone has an opportunity to help us build a beloved community.

Mr. President, I want to thank the majority leader for his encouraging and kind words and especially thank my friend and former chair of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, for inviting other colleagues to come to the floor to speak in support of the right to vote.

Time and again in history, we have asked men and women to stand and risk their lives and, in fact, give their lives for the most fundamental premise of our democracy: the right to vote. They have fought. They have bled. They have died for that right.

Now it is under attack again--not from any foreign source. Over the past few years, our Nation has witnessed the most heavily coordinated assault on the right to vote in modern memory. Since the start of 2021, Republican legislators throughout the country have introduced over 425 pieces of legislation with provisions to make it more difficult for Americans to vote. Thirty-three of these laws were actually enacted in 19 States. Some of these laws have set new limits on voting by mail; others cut hours for polling locations. Each of these proposals is designed to achieve the same outcome: create barriers for Americans when it comes to the ballot box.

One of the strongest champions of democracy in American history was my old friend and colleague John Lewis of Georgia. Days before his passing, John wrote: ``Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.''

It is now this generation's turn to act, John, because nothing less than the survival of America's democracy is at stake.

At a moment when lawmakers across the country are railing around the Big Lie to strip away our constitutional rights, we in this Senate must have the courage to step up and protect those rights. If the supporters of the former President of the United States are going to defame our democracy, we have to fight to defend it. We can begin by reinvigorating one of the most important pieces of legislation in modern American history: the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I am sure there are folks who are watching this at home, saying: Wait a minute. How can a piece of legislation signed into law more than 50 years ago be the solution to today's challenge to democracy?

That is because over the past several years, there has been a sustained effort to chip away at the protections guaranteed to every American under that Voting Rights Act.

For instance, in 2013, the Supreme Court issued the decision in Shelby County v. Holder, essentially nullifying a key provision in the Voting Rights Act, section 5. Prior to the Court's ruling in Shelby, section 5 required that localities with a track record of disenfranchising voters of color through tactics as brutal as poll taxes and literacy tests would have to seek Federal approval for changes they make in their voting rules. This requirement is known as preclearance, and it could have prevented many of the restrictive voting provisions being enacted in States like Georgia and Texas today.

Just this past summer, the Supreme Court weakened another section of the Voting Rights Act with its decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.

With these wrongful rulings, the Supreme Court has fueled State-led efforts to suppress voters, particularly voters of color. In fact, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent to Brnovich that ``in the last decade, this Court has treated no statute worse'' than the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It is time for Congress to uphold our constitutional obligation and restore the Voting Rights Act to its full potential. That is why we join together today to introduce a bill that would not only restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act but strengthen them.

Tomorrow, we will hold a hearing on this critical legislation in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is called the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. By all means, passing this law should be a bipartisan endeavor. Historically, it always was. It wasn't until very recently that the Republicans--the party of Abraham Lincoln--decided that they would no longer join in our effort to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. It wasn't that long ago that it was bipartisan and passed easily. The last time Congress voted to do so, in fact, the Republican minority leader, Senator McConnell, came to the floor and said: ``This is a piece of legislation which has worked.''

Well, let's make sure we keep it working for America. In our Nation, there is no freedom more fundamental than the right to vote, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act will help ensure that every American can exercise that right that he famously called the ``precious, almost sacred'' right.

I want to thank Senator Leahy, Senator Blumenthal, and my colleague Senator Warnock for joining us on the floor and a number of our colleagues for the collaboration and hard work on preparing this legislation for introduction and our House colleagues who passed their version of the bill earlier this summer.

I particularly want to thank the man for whom this bill is named. I was honored to count him as a friend--even more when he came in on more than one occasion at my invitation to campaign in the State of Illinois. I was honored to join him on a Sunday morning walk, which I will never forget, over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, John and I talking about that moment in history. It is something I will treasure for a lifetime.

We, in his name, need to honor him and to honor the principles that he gave his life for, making certain that everyone has an opportunity to help us build a beloved community.