[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 756 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 756
Supporting the designation of September 2025 as ``National Voting
Rights Month''.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 19, 2025
Mr. Veasey (for himself, Mr. Scott of Virginia, Ms. Sewell, Ms.
Williams of Georgia, Mr. Green of Texas, Ms. Meng, Mr. Johnson of
Georgia, Mr. Fields, Mr. Deluzio, Ms. Barragan, Ms. Johnson of Texas,
Mr. Mullin, Ms. Davids of Kansas, Ms. Kamlager-Dove, Mrs. Watson
Coleman, Ms. McClellan, Mr. Cleaver, Mr. Carter of Louisiana, Ms.
Plaskett, Ms. McCollum, Mr. Olszewski, Ms. Ansari, and Ms. Crockett)
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committees on House
Administration, Science, Space, and Technology, Oversight and
Government Reform, Financial Services, Ways and Means, Natural
Resources, and Homeland Security, 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 2025 as ``National Voting
Rights Month''.
Whereas voting is one 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, 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 designed to suppress the right of those underrepresented
individuals to vote;
Whereas, as of 2024, 4,404,000 people in the United States were disenfranchised
from voting because of a felony conviction, including 1 in 16 Black
adults, due to the shameful entanglement of racial injustice in the
criminal justice system and access to voting in the United States;
Whereas members of the aforementioned groups and others are currently subject to
intimidation, voter roll purges, and financial barriers that effectively
act as modern-day poll taxes;
Whereas, in 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301
et seq.) in large part to protect the right of Black Americans and other
traditionally disenfranchised groups to vote;
Whereas, in 2013, in the landmark case of Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529
(2013), the Supreme Court invalidated section 4 of the Voting Rights Act
of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10303), dismantling the preclearance formula
provision that protected voters in States and localities that have
historically suppressed the right of minorities to vote by requiring
those states to receive preapproval from the Federal Government for
changes in voting laws;
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 go unchallenged and are 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 one 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 created to favor some groups over others, and
State legislatures with Republican majorities are actively working to
further gerrymander districts before the next Federal election;
Whereas some States have implemented new voting restrictions that make it more
difficult to vote, including cutbacks in the availability of early
voting, voter roll purges, placement of faulty equipment in minority
communities, requirement of photo identification, and the elimination of
same-day registration;
Whereas those 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 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 public health emergency caused by the Coronavirus Disease 2019;
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 introduced and at least 44 bills
signed into law in 18 States to restrict the right to vote;
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 2025 is Tuesday, September 16; and
Whereas September 2025 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 a ``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 (H.R. 11, S. 1, 118th
Congress), to set national standards to expand voter
registration and voting access, advance election
integrity reforms, and protect the democracy of the
United States;
(B) the Democracy Restoration Act of 2023 (H.R.
4987, 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 civic
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 are restricting the right
to vote;
(5) expresses appreciation for the United States Postal
Service for issuing 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.
<all>