[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 703 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 703
Supporting the designation of September 2023 as ``National Voting
Rights Month''.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 19, 2023
Mr. Veasey (for himself, Ms. Clarke of New York, Mr. Johnson of
Georgia, Ms. Meng, Ms. DelBene, Mr. Evans, Ms. Norton, Ms. Barragan,
Mrs. Napolitano, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Costa, Mr. David Scott of Georgia,
Ms. Moore of Wisconsin, Mr. Raskin, Mr. Cardenas, Ms. Sewell, Ms.
Stevens, Ms. Williams of Georgia, Mr. Carter of Louisiana, Mr.
Grijalva, Mr. Doggett, Mr. Tonko, Mr. Krishnamoorthi, Mr. Espaillat,
Ms. Plaskett, Mr. Takano, Ms. Wilson of Florida, Mr. Kim of New Jersey,
Mr. Sarbanes, Ms. Lee of California, Ms. Tlaib, Ms. Adams, Mr. Carson,
Ms. Brown, Mr. Green of Texas, Mr. Mullin, Mr. Jackson of Illinois, and
Mr. Scott of Virginia) submitted the following resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the
Committee on House Administration, for a period to be subsequently
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Supporting the designation of September 2023 as ``National Voting
Rights Month''.
Whereas voting is 1 of the single most important rights that can be exercised in
a democracy;
Whereas, over the course of history, various voter suppression laws in the
United States have hindered, and even prohibited, certain individuals
and groups from exercising the right to vote;
Whereas, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, Native Americans and people
who were born to United States citizens abroad, people who spoke a
language other than English, and people who were formerly subjected to
slavery were denied full citizenship and prevented from voting by
English literacy tests;
Whereas, since the 1870s, minority groups such as Black Americans in the South
have suffered from the oppressive effects of Jim Crow laws that were
designed to prevent political, economic, and social mobility;
Whereas Black Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and other
underrepresented voters were subject to violence, poll taxes, literacy
tests, all-White primaries, property ownership tests, and grandfather
clauses that were designed to suppress the right of those
underrepresented individuals to vote;
Whereas 5,800,000 people in the United States are currently banned from voting
because of a felony conviction, including 1 in 16 Black adults, due to
the shameful entanglement of racial injustice in the criminal legal
system and voting access in the United States;
Whereas members of the aforementioned groups and others are currently, in some
cases, subject to intimidation, voter roll purges, and financial
barriers that act effectively as modern-day poll taxes;
Whereas, in 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301
et seq.) to protect the right of Black Americans and other traditionally
disenfranchised groups to vote, among other reasons;
Whereas, in 2013, in the landmark case of Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529
(2013), the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated section 4 of
the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10303), dismantling the
preclearance formula provision in that Act that protected voters in
States and localities that historically have suppressed the right of
minorities to vote;
Whereas, since the invalidation of the preclearance formula provision of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.), gerrymandered
districts in many States have gone unchallenged and have become less
likely to be invalidated by the courts;
Whereas gerrymandered districts in many States have been found to have a
discriminatory impact on traditionally disenfranchised minorities
through tactics that include ``cracking'', diluting the voting power of
minorities across many districts, and ``packing'', concentrating the
power of minority voters into 1 district to reduce their voting power in
other districts;
Whereas the courts have found the congressional and, in some cases, State
legislative district maps, in Texas, North Carolina, Florida,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Alabama, and Louisiana to be
gerrymandered districts that were created to favor some groups over
others;
Whereas these restrictive voting laws encompass cutbacks in early voting, voter
roll purges, placement of faulty equipment in minority communities,
requirement of photo identification, and the elimination of same-day
registration;
Whereas these policies could outright disenfranchise or make voting much more
difficult for more than 80,000,000 minority, elderly, poor, and disabled
voters, among other groups;
Whereas, in 2016, discriminatory laws in North Carolina, Wisconsin, North
Dakota, and Texas were ruled to violate the rights of voters and were
overturned by the courts;
Whereas the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Shelby County
v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), calls on Congress to update the formula
in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.);
Whereas addressing the challenges of administering future elections requires
increasing the accessibility of vote-by-mail and other limited-contact
options to ensure access to the ballot and the protection of the health
and safety of voters, and access to the ballot amid a global pandemic
like the Coronavirus Disease 2019 public health emergency;
Whereas Congress must work to combat any attempts to dismantle or underfund the
United States Postal Service or obstruct the passage of the mail as
blatant tactics of voter suppression and election interference;
Whereas following the 2020 elections there has been a relentless attack on the
right to vote with more than 400 bills having been introduced to roll
back the right to vote, including such bills being introduced in almost
every State and at least 44 of such bills having been signed into law in
18 States;
Whereas there is much more work to be done to ensure all citizens of the United
States have the right to vote through free, fair, and accessible
elections, and Congress must exercise its constitutional authority to
protect the right to vote;
Whereas National Voter Registration Day in 2023 is Tuesday, September 19; and
Whereas September 2023 would be an appropriate month--
(1) to designate as ``National Voting Rights Month''; and
(2) to ensure that, through the registration of voters and awareness of
elections, the democracy of the United States includes all citizens of the
United States: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) expresses support for the designation of ``National
Voting Rights Month'';
(2) encourages all people in the United States to uphold
the right of every citizen to exercise the sacred and
fundamental right to vote;
(3) encourages Congress to pass--
(A) the Freedom to Vote Act (S. 1, 118th Congress),
to set basic national standards to make sure all people
in the United States can cast their ballots in the way
that works best for them, regardless of what ZIP Code
they live in, improve access to the ballot for people
in the United States, advance commonsense election
integrity reforms, and protect the democracy of the
United States from relentless attacks;
(B) the Democracy Restoration Act of 2023 (S. 1677,
118th Congress), to restore Federal voting rights to
citizens after release from imprisonment, honoring the
responsibilities of citizenship and civic engagement
necessary for building healthy and safe communities,
while welcoming the contributions of people returning
home after imprisonment; and
(C) other voting rights legislation that seeks to
advance voting rights and protect elections in the
United States;
(4) recommends that public schools and universities in the
United States develop an academic curriculum that educates
students about--
(A) the importance of voting, how to register to
vote, where to vote, and the different forms of voting;
(B) the history of voter suppression in the United
States before and after passage of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.); and
(C) current measures that have been taken to
restrict the vote;
(5) expresses appreciation for the United States Postal
Service having issued a special Representative John R. Lewis
stamp--
(A) to honor the life and legacy of Representative
John R. Lewis in supporting voting rights; and
(B) to remind people in the United States that
ordinary citizens risked their lives, marched, and
participated in the great democracy of the United
States so that all citizens would have the fundamental
right to vote; and
(6) invites Congress to allocate the requisite funds for
public service announcements on television, radio, newspapers,
magazines, social media, billboards, buses, and other forms of
media--
(A) to remind people in the United States when
elections are being held;
(B) to share important registration deadlines; and
(C) to urge people to get out and vote.
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