March 28, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 54 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S2100-S2101]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           VOTER SUPPRESSION

  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the most important words in our 
Constitution are the first three. We all know them: ``We the people,'' 
written in supersize font so we don't forget what our Constitution is 
all about--government, as Lincoln put it, of, by, and for the people, 
or, as Jefferson put it, government designed to produce laws that 
reflect the will of the people.
  We don't see that now. We don't have a government of, by, and for the 
people. Instead, we have a system that has been profoundly corrupted. 
It has been corrupted by gerrymandering. It has been corrupted by voter 
suppression and intimidation. It has been corrupted by dark and dirty 
money that has flooded our campaigns and wiped out the voice of 
millions of Americans. That is where we are now in this corrupted 
state.
  We have debates on the floor that are all about helping a small group 
of people within a circle of power and privilege rather than having 
bills that help the citizens of the United States of America. In fact, 
we have a President who just this week said his goal was to tear down 
healthcare for 30 million Americans, to wipe out the expansion of 
Medicaid, to wipe out the tax credits that assist so many Americans 
with being able to afford insurance, to wipe out the protection to be 
able to get healthcare if you have a preexisting condition, and to wipe 
out the ability of your children to be on your policy until the age of 
26. That is government by and for this very little circle of privilege 
and power instead of the people of the United States of America. We saw 
it in other ways too.
  In 2017, we saw a bill that reached into the Federal Treasury, took 
$1.5 trillion, and gave almost all of it to that small group of people 
inside that circle of privilege and power while it ignored the rest of 
the country. That is what happens in corrupt countries. The power elite 
reach in, take the Treasury for themselves, and ignore the will of the 
people.
  Every Member of this body took a pledge to the Constitution of the 
United States--a Constitution not founded on we the powerful but on we 
the people. So I ask: Are we going to honor that oath? If we are going 
to honor it, it means we have to stand up and end this deep and vast 
corruption.
  Yesterday, Senator Udall and I and all of my colleagues on this side 
of the aisle introduced a bill that is designed to take on 
gerrymandering, to take on voter suppression, and to take on dark 
money. Let's talk about gerrymandering.
  The Supreme Court has never done a thing about it even though it is 
clearly all about having the powerful choose its voters rather than 
having the voters choose their Representatives. It is a complete 
shredding of the vision of the Constitution. The Supreme Court utterly 
failed to act. It has a case before it now, and it will have another 
opportunity, but don't hold your breath.
  The time to address gerrymandering is before it is done. How do you 
do that? You do that with independent commissions. Independent 
commissions have been adopted in States like Iowa, and they have been 
widely received by the citizens as an issue of fairness. Yet, across so 
many States, we have congressional districts that are deliberately 
gerrymandered to favor the parties in power. It has happened in 
Democratic States, and it has happened in Republican States. You see it 
sometimes by the crazy configurations of the map. Sometimes you see it 
when a State that is essentially equally divided between the parties 
produces congressional Representatives heavily leaning to one side.
  It is hard to remedy after the fact, but you can remedy before the 
fact by having independent commissions across this country. The way you 
take that on is you have a group of six individuals. They take two from 
the Democrats and two from the Republicans and two of whom are 
Independents, and they may select a broader set of participants--maybe 
an additional three

[[Page S2101]]

for the Ds and three from the Rs and three from the Independents. Then, 
when they take votes, there has to be a vote from each of those three 
sectors. That is sort of the design that forces cooperation and sets up 
a condition of fairness, and that is what the For the People Act does 
that we introduced yesterday.
  Now, I will tell you that State by State, and in my State, people 
ask: Why should I fix gerrymandering when that State over there still 
favors the other party? It is like waving the white flag on my turf 
while they are ripping us off over there. That is why it should be done 
at the Federal level. That is why we should pass the For the People 
Act.
  This act takes on the issue of voting fairness. If you really believe 
in the vision of a democratic republic, you believe in voter 
empowerment, not voter suppression. Yet what have we seen this last 
November 6? We have seen strategies to keep college students from 
voting, strategies to keep communities of color from voting, strategies 
to keep the poor from voting, strategies to prevent Native Americans 
from voting. Those strategies are born from people who don't believe in 
the vision of our Constitution. They don't believe it is the foundation 
for what we have. They see this as just a game to produce a result, 
which is a government for that small group of people inside that circle 
of power and privilege. I am a little more patriotic than that. I 
believe in the vision of our Constitution, so let's take on these 
efforts to obstruct voting.
  We did have a bill that had vast bipartisan support. It was called 
the Voting Rights Act, and we reauthorized it with vast bipartisan 
support because not so long ago, both sides of the aisle believed in 
the vision of our Constitution but not now. Unfortunately, now we are 
hearing that our colleagues across the aisle like voter intimidation. 
We see the Republican States engaging in it on a massive scale. It is 
increasing their power. They want to hold onto it--to clutch it to 
their chests and not let go. Yet, if you believe in the Constitution, 
if you believe in our country, you would let go. You would say: Let's 
appeal to all of the voters with our vision and not try to stop them 
from voting.
  That is why we need to take down the barriers for voting. That is why 
we need automatic voter registration and internet registration and 
same-day registration--so people can sign up to vote. It means we need 
better access to voting so there isn't manipulation at the precinct 
places and so there is early voting nationwide and the right to choose 
to vote by mail.

  Now, of course, I am a little biased on this because my home State of 
Oregon led the Nation in automatic voter registration, and we led the 
Nation in voting by mail. For those who are worrying about people 
voting who shouldn't be voting, nothing is more secure than to vote by 
mail, and those who are worried about electronic machines being hacked 
and not having a paper ballot, there is nothing more secure than voting 
by mail.
  When polls do occur and people go to those polls, shouldn't we make 
sure they are adequately staffed? The whole strategy of moving polling 
places at the last minute in order to confuse people and the whole 
strategy of understaffing polling places in the neighborhoods that you 
don't want to have vote is really evil--evil in that it takes away the 
vision of our Constitution. Voter empowerment is the vision; voter 
suppression is not. So that takes us to those polls and to our making 
sure we have a polling protection act. That is why we need the For the 
People Act--to take that on.
  Then we come to dark and dirty money--money flowing in from 
corporations and all kinds of overseas, foreign participants. Nothing 
is being done here about that. Of course, the vision laid out by Thomas 
Jefferson called it equal voice. It meant distributed power among the 
electorate, not concentrated power, only with equal voice. He said it 
was the mother principle. Only with that do you get bills that reflect 
the will of the people. We are getting bills that reflect a small 
circle of power and privilege, not the people, because of this dark 
money concentrating power.
  When the Koch brothers' cartel puts hundreds of millions of dollars 
into our campaign, the ordinary voter asks: Where is my equal voice? I 
don't have hundreds of millions of dollars. I will be lucky if I can 
give $10 to this candidate and $15 to that candidate. So the American 
people know the system is rigged--rigged in a profound way by this dark 
money.
  Where does this come from?
  It comes from that same Supreme Court that gutted the Voting Rights 
Act, from that same Supreme Court that failed to take on 
gerrymandering. It is the Court that has flipped our Constitution on 
its head and has replaced we the people with the vision of government 
by and for that small group of people in a circle of power--people like 
the Koch brothers, who, in 2014, spent hundreds of millions of dollars 
to change the makeup of this Chamber. Nobody in my blue-collar 
neighborhood has hundreds of millions of dollars. They know the system 
has been rigged. That is why we need the For the People Act--to restore 
the vision of our Constitution.
  I encourage all red-blooded, patriotic Americans to stand up for 
their Constitution, to fight for the vision embodied in Jefferson's 
mother principle of equal voice, distributed power, and to remedy the 
dark money flowing through our campaigns. Not only is it vastly 
corrupting, but it drives vast cynicism because the people see what is 
going on.
  Let's fix the gerrymandering on the front end. It is hard for the 
courts to do it on the back end even if they had the will to do so. 
Let's fix fair voting on the front end and not argue about it afterward 
when we can't even count the ballots because there are electronic 
machines and people didn't have a fair chance to get to the polls. 
Let's fix the dark money and embrace equal voice.
  I am concerned that time is short to save our Republic because the 
money has so piled up under this strategy of government by and for the 
powerful that over the last decades, while the wages and benefits of 
ordinary people have been flat or declining, the wealth of that small 
circle of power has gone through the roof.
  In the first three decades after World War II, everyone participated. 
It was the spirit of the war. We were all in it together. Let's make 
our government work for all. In the midseventies, it ended--vast wealth 
for the wealthy and only struggling opportunities or struggling 
conditions for those ordinary Americans.
  We have to save our Constitution. Let's do it. Let's pass the For the 
People Act. Let's have a full and robust debate on this floor so we 
will all be accountable to our citizens and to our pledge and our oath 
to the Constitution of the United States of America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.

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