The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“BUSINESS BEFORE THE SENATE” mentioning Charles E. Schumer was published in the Senate section on pages S4637-S4640 on June 21.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
BUSINESS BEFORE THE SENATE
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, on today's, tomorrow's, and this week's business, the Senate will soon vote on two more nominees to join President Biden's administration: Christopher Fonzone to serve as general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Kiran Ahuja to be Director of the Office of Personnel Management. Those votes will happen tonight and tomorrow.
The discussions on the bipartisan infrastructure bill and a budget reconciliation bill are both moving forward and will continue throughout the week.
But tomorrow--tomorrow--the Senate will also take a crucial vote on whether to start debate on major voting rights legislation.
I want to say that again. Tomorrow, the Senate will take a vote on whether to start debate on legislation to protect Americans' voting rights. It is not a vote on any particular policy. It is not a vote on this bill or that bill. It is a vote on whether the Senate should simply debate the issue about voting rights--the crucial issue of voting rights in this country.
Now, by all rights, we shouldn't have to debate voting rights on the floor of the U.S. Senate. These rights should be sacrosanct, but the events of the last few months compel us to have this debate now.
Why is there such urgency? Because of what has been happening in Republican legislature after legislature in the last several months. Voting rights--the most fundamental right of a democracy, the right that men and women have died for in wartime and in peacetime, the right by which all other rights are secured--are under assault--under assault from one end of the country to the other.
In the wake of the 2020 election, Donald Trump told a lie--a Big Lie--that the election was stolen from him by voter fraud. There was no evidence for this. His own administration concluded that the 2020 election was one of the safest in history. His lawyers were laughed out of courts, many by Republican judges--some by judges he appointed, that Trump appointed. But he kept saying it anyway. He lied over and over and over again. Donald Trump lied over and over and over again, poisoning our democracy, lighting a fire beneath Republican State legislatures, which immediately launched the most sweeping voter suppression effort in years.
Just a note, how despicable a man is Donald Trump. He lost an election legitimately. He can't face that--that it was his failure. And he creates a lie--a Big Lie--and wins so many people over to that lie with the help of news media and other news commentators who are lying, as well, and they know it.
Again, Donald Trump, with his despicable lies, has lit a fire beneath Republican State legislatures, and they have launched the most sweeping voter suppression efforts in at least 80 years.
More than 250 bills in 43 States were introduced just between the months of January and February that would restrict the right to vote. Do you want to know how many were introduced during a similar period of time last year, the year before Donald Trump was telling the Big Lie? Thirty-five. Thirty-five in 2020 and more than 250 in 2021.
Today, in June, there have been nearly 400 bills introduced. The only thing that changed between 2020 and 2021 was Donald Trump's Big Lie about massive fraud.
And now in States like Georgia and Iowa and Florida and Montana, these proposals are becoming law under the vicious guise of election integrity. The words ``election integrity'' aren't a guise. There is nothing vicious about them. The way Republican legislatures are using those words is vicious and a guise, a falsehood, fake.
I want my Republican colleagues--maybe, we can awaken their conscience, maybe, on something as sacred as voting rights. I want my Republican colleagues to listen to some of the policies that have been proposed by Republican State legislatures and tell me how they are about election integrity, how they are about suppressing fraud:
Reducing polling hours in polling places. How is that about election integrity? How does that reduce voter fraud?
Mandating that every precinct, no matter how large or small, have the same number of ballot drop boxes--a county of a million or a county of 1,000, the same number. How does that reduce fraud? What does that have to do with election integrity?
No after-hours voting, no 24-hour voting, no drive-through voting. What does that have to do with election fraud?
It certainly has everything to do with reducing people's right to vote and the ability to vote, but nothing to do with election fraud.
My Republican colleagues, how does making it a crime to give food or water to voters waiting in long lines at the polls deter voter fraud, which, really, we have found no evidence exists, to begin with--very little evidence?
By the way, in so many States, if you are African American, if you are inner city, if you are poor, if you are Brown, you have to wait a lot longer than if you are White and in the suburbs. Don't give them water. Don't allow them to have a drink as they are waiting in the hot Sun in line to vote. Yeah. What does that have to do with voter fraud? It has to do with cruelty, it has to do with nastiness, and it has to do with suppressing the vote.
Allowing a judge to overturn an election; allowing a partisan State election board to replace a duly elected county election board member if they are underperforming--what does that have to do with fraud? What does that have to do with fraud?
Removing student IDs from the list of valid forms of identification--
that is election integrity? Bunk. We know what you are doing. You don't want students to vote. Yeah. Don't let students vote. Turn them off to the whole process, and make America even more alienated.
Delaying the hours of Sunday voting until the evening, which, coincidentally or not so coincidentally, by these Republican legislatures makes it harder for Black churchgoers to participate in voter drives after Sunday services--how despicable. Does that sound like Jim Crow, my Republican colleagues? It sure does to a lot of us.
I challenge my Republican colleagues. I challenge you, Republican Senators: Come to the floor. Defend these policies. Tell us how they secure the vote. Tell us how they prevent nearly nonexistent voter fraud. How does removing student IDs as a valid form of identification secure our elections? Do you have any evidence that 40-year-olds are showing up at the polls with fake student IDs? Come on, show us. How is criminalizing giving water or food to voters in a line a fraud prevention measure? You got any evidence of that? What arguments do Republicans have for restrictions on Sunday voting? That is what Texas Senators--Texas Republicans want to do. Do any of my colleagues actually have evidence that voter fraud is especially prevalent on the Lord's Day? Please. We know what you are up to. America knows what you are up to. And not to debate this? Are you afraid to debate it? Do you not have any good arguments?
Let's dispense with this nonsense. There is no real principle behind these policies. They are not about election integrity, and they are not about voter fraud. These policies have one purpose and one purpose only: making it harder for younger, poorer, non-White, and typically Democratic voters to access the ballot and to give Republicans a partisan advantage at the polls by making it harder for Democratic-
leaning voters to vote.
You lose an election, you are not supposed to stop people from voting, even if they didn't vote for you. That is not democracy, my Republican friends. You lose an election, you are supposed to try harder to win over the voters you lost.
Republicans across the country are trying to stop the other side from voting. That tears and rips apart the very fabric of our democracy.
Disenfranchising millions of Americans is bad enough, but there is actually another sinister component of these voter suppression laws. In States like Arizona, Kansas, Arkansas, and Georgia, Republican legislatures are trying to give more power to themselves and other partisan bodies to undermine, override, and neuter bipartisan election boards and county-elected officials.
It has always been bipartisan. They didn't like the result. They lost fair and square. Get rid of the election board official when there is no evidence they did anything wrong. The cumulative effect will make it easier for followers of Trump's Big Lie, for partisan Republicans to rig the rules and try to overturn election results.
I read this article in the New York Times this weekend. You could weep from reading it. They reported that at least 10 members of county election boards in Georgia have been removed or are about to be removed in the wake of the new law passed by the GOP legislature. These are the folks who are in charge of selecting ballot drop box locations. They pointed out an African-American woman who made sure that a poor area had a drop box every year to allow people to vote. They want to kick her off the board. No one knows why. We do know why. There is no real, legitimate reason why. According to the Times, who are they kicking off? At least five are people of color, most are Democrats, and they are all most likely to be replaced by Republicans.
Please, my colleagues, read this article. Read this article on how Republican States are expanding their power over elections, by Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein, June 19, 2021. Read it. Can you read this article and still believe what Republican legislatures are doing is on the level? Can you read this article and believe they are not trying to jaundice and bias voting from what has traditionally been a process that is free and open and fair in many places--in most places? Read it. Just read it. It makes you want to weep what they are doing.
This nice lady, who just wanted to help her people vote in a fair and honest way, gets kicked off the board or is getting kicked off the board.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this full article from the New York Times dated June 19, 2021 How Republican States Are Expanding Their Power Over Elections
(By Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein)
In Georgia, Republicans are removing Democrats of color from local boards. In Arkansas, they have stripped election control from county authorities. And they are expanding their election power in many other states.
Lonnie Hollis has been a member of the Troup County election board in West Georgia since 2013. A Democrat and one of two Black women on the board, she has advocated Sunday voting, helped voters on Election Days and pushed for a new precinct location at a Black church in a nearby town.
But this year, Ms. Hollis will be removed from the board, the result of a local election law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican. Previously, election board members were selected by both political parties, county commissioners and the three biggest municipalities in Troup County. Now, the G.O.P.-controlled county commission has the sole authority to restructure the board and appoint all the new members.
``I speak out and I know the laws,'' Ms. Hollis said in an interview. ``The bottom line is they don't like people that have some type of intelligence and know what they're doing, because they know they can't influence them.''
Ms. Hollis is not alone. Across Georgia, members of at least 10 county election boards have been removed, had their position eliminated or are likely to be kicked off through local ordinances or new laws passed by the state legislature. At least five are people of color and most are Democrats--though some are Republicans--and they will most likely all be replaced by Republicans.
Ms. Hollis and local officials like her have been some of the earliest casualties as Republican-led legislatures mount an expansive takeover of election administration in a raft of new voting bills this year.
G.O.P. lawmakers have also stripped secretaries of state of their power, asserted more control over state election boards, made it easier to overturn election results, and pursued several partisan audits and inspections of 2020 results.
Republican state lawmakers have introduced at least 216 bills in 41 states to give legislatures more power over elections officials, according to the States United Democracy Center, a new bipartisan organization that aims to protect democratic norms. Of those, 24 have been enacted into law across 14 states.
G.O.P. lawmakers in Georgia say the new measures are meant to improve the performance of local boards, and reduce the influence of the political parties. But the laws allow Republicans to remove local officials they don't like, and because several of them have been Black Democrats, voting rights groups fear that these are further attempts to disenfranchise voters of color.
The maneuvers risk eroding some of the core checks that stood as a bulwark against former President Donald J. Trump as he sought to subvert the 2020 election results. Had these bills been in place during the aftermath of the election, Democrats say, they would have significantly added to the turmoil Mr. Trump and his allies wrought by trying to overturn the outcome. They worry that proponents of Mr. Trump's conspiracy theories will soon have much greater control over the levers of the American elections system.
``It's a thinly veiled attempt to wrest control from officials who oversaw one of the most secure elections in our history and put it in the hands of bad actors,'' said Jena Griswold, the chairwoman of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State and the current Colorado secretary of state. ``The risk is the destruction of democracy.''
Officials like Ms. Hollis are responsible for decisions like selecting drop box and precinct locations, sending out voter notices, establishing early voting hours and certifying elections. But the new laws are targeting high-level state officials as well, in particular secretaries of state--both Republican and Democratic--who stood up to Mr. Trump and his allies last year.
Republicans in Arizona have introduced a bill that would largely strip Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state, of her authority over election lawsuits, and then expire when she leaves office. And they have introduced another bill that would give the Legislature more power over setting the guidelines for election administration, a major task currently carried out by the secretary of state.
Under Georgia's new voting law, Republicans significantly weakened the secretary of state's office after Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who is the current secretary, rebuffed Mr. Trump's demands to ``find'' votes. They removed the secretary of state as the chair of the state election board and relieved the office of its voting authority on the board.
Kansas Republicans in May overrode a veto from Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, to enact laws stripping the governor of the power to modify election laws and prohibiting the secretary of state, a Republican who repeatedly vouched for the security of voting by mail, from settling election-related lawsuits without the Legislature's consent.
And more Republicans who cling to Mr. Trump's election lies are running for secretary of state, putting a critical office within reach of conspiracy theorists. In Georgia, Representative Jody Hice, a Republican who voted against certifying President Biden's victory, is running against Mr. Raffensperger. Republican candidates with similar views are running for secretary of state in Nevada, Arizona and Michigan.
``In virtually every state, every election administrator is going to feel like they're under the magnifying glass,'' said Victoria Bassetti, a senior adviser to the States United Democracy Center.
More immediately, it is local election officials at the county and municipal level who are being either removed or stripped of their power.
In Arkansas, Republicans were stung last year when Jim Sorvillo, a three-term state representative from Little Rock, lost re-election by 24 votes to Ashley Hudson, a Democrat and local lawyer. Elections officials in Pulaski County, which includes Little Rock, were later found to have accidentally tabulated 327 absentee ballots during the vote-counting process, 27 of which came from the district.
Mr. Sorvillo filed multiple lawsuits aiming to stop Ms. Hudson from being seated, and all were rejected. The Republican caucus considered refusing to seat Ms. Hudson, then ultimately voted to accept her.
But last month, Arkansas Republicans wrote new legislation that allows a state board of election commissioners--composed of six Republicans and one Democrat--to investigate and
``institute corrective action'' on a wide variety of issues at every stage of the voting process, from registration to the casting and counting of ballots to the certification of elections. The law applies to all counties, but it is widely believed to be aimed at Pulaski, one of the few in the state that favor Democrats.
The author of the legislation, State Representative Mark Lowery, a Republican from a suburb of Little Rock, said it was necessary to remove election power from the local authorities, who in Pulaski County are Democrats, because otherwise Republicans could not get a fair shake.
``Without this legislation, the only entity you could have referred impropriety to is the prosecuting attorney, who is a Democrat, and possibly not had anything done,'' Mr. Lowery said in an interview. ``This gives another level of investigative authority to a board that is commissioned by the state to oversee elections.''
Asked about last year's election, Mr. Lowery said, ``I do believe Donald Trump was elected president.''
A separate new Arkansas law allows a state board to ``take over and conduct elections'' in a county if a committee of the legislature determines that there are questions about the
``appearance of an equal, free and impartial election.''
In Georgia, the legislature passed a unique law for some counties. For Troup County, State Representative Randy Nix, a Republican, said he had introduced the bill that restructured the county election board--and will remove Ms. Hollis--only after it was requested by county commissioners. He said he was not worried that the commission, a partisan body with four Republicans and one Democrat, could exert influence over elections.
``The commissioners are all elected officials and will face the voters to answer for their actions,'' Mr. Nix said in an email.
Eric Mosley, the county manager for Troup County, which Mr. Trump carried by 22 points, said that the decision to ask Mr. Nix for the bill was meant to make the board more bipartisan. It was unanimously supported by the commission.
``We felt that removing both the Republican and Democratic representation and just truly choose members of the community that invest hard to serve those community members was the true intent of the board,'' Mr. Mosley said. ``Our goal is to create both political and racial diversity on the board.''
In Morgan County, east of Atlanta, Helen Butler has been one of the state's most prominent Democratic voices on voting rights and election administration. A member of the county board of elections in a rural, Republican county, she also runs the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, a group dedicated to protecting the voting rights of Black Americans and increasing their civic engagement.
But Ms. Butler will be removed from the county board at the end of the month, after Mr. Kemp signed a local bill that ended the ability of political parties to appoint members.
``I think it's all a part of the ploy for the takeover of local boards of elections that the state legislature has put in place,'' Ms. Butler said. ``It is them saying that they have the right to say whether an election official is doing it right, when in fact they don't work in the day to day and don't understand the process themselves.''
It's not just Democrats who are being removed. In DeKalb County, the state's fourth-largest, Republicans chose not to renominate Baoky Vu to the election board after more than 12 years in the position. Mr. Vu, a Republican, had joined with Democrats in a letter opposing an election-related bill that eventually failed to pass.
To replace Mr. Vu, Republicans nominated Paul Maner, a well-known local conservative with a history of false statements, including an insinuation that the son of a Georgia congresswoman was killed in ``a drug deal gone bad.''
Back in LaGrange, Ms. Hollis is trying to do as much as she can in the time she has left on the board. The extra precinct in nearby Hogansville, where the population is roughly 50 percent Black, is a top priority. While its population is only about 3,000, the town is bifurcated by a rail line, and Ms. Hollis said that sometimes it can take an exceedingly long time for a line of freight cars to clear, which is problematic on Election Days.
``We've been working on this for over a year,'' Ms. Hollis said, saying Republicans had thrown up procedural hurdles to block the process. But she was undeterred.
``I'm not going to sit there and wait for you to tell me what it is that I should do for the voters there,'' she said.
``I'm going to do the right thing.''
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, my Republican friends are fond of saying that they just want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat in an election. But when you look at what they are actually doing, it is spectacularly obvious that Republicans are making it harder to vote and easier to steal an election. The Big Lie that started with Donald Trump is infecting them--infecting them. Lies don't matter, and they don't matter when it comes to the sacred process of elections--free, open, fair elections where everyone has an opportunity to vote.
Do my colleagues forget? Remember what Donald Trump did? Was he interested in a free, open, fair election? Donald Trump tried to pressure local officials to overturn a democratic election in America. It was a stress test on our democracy unlike any in recent history, but our institutions held. So now what do Republicans want to do? Change the results. Change the election officials.
Again, Trump tried to pressure local officials to overturn democratic elections in a huge stress test on our democracy. Our institutions held. Local officials certified election results. The courts rejected spurious claims of fraud. Vice President Pence, no less, opened the proper envelopes. The House and Senate came together to count the results of the electoral college in the immediate aftermath of an armed insurrection.
Now--now--because they couldn't win the election and our institutions, our democratic--small ``d,'' democratic--institutions held, they want to change who is running the elections to be partisan and biased. Republican State legislatures are actively removing many of the barriers that prevented Donald Trump from subverting our elections. Shame. Shame. Shame.
I lay all this information at the feet of my Republican colleagues: a sweeping effort to disenfranchise millions of voters, mostly Black and Brown students, the working poor; an attack on the checks that held our democracy together in the face of Donald Trump's assaults. Many of us wondered: Will these institutions hold? Would Trump-appointed judges tell the Trump lawyers that they were full of bunk and there wasn't fraud? They did. It was a glorious moment for our democracy, and the Republican majority here in the Senate wants to undo it and doesn't even want to debate it.
We can argue what should be done to protect voting rights and safeguard our democracy, but don't you think we should be able to debate the issue? The vote tomorrow is on, to my people watching. It is called a motion to proceed. It is how we get bills on the floor of the Senate. It needs 60 votes to be able to be debated. Will our Republicans let us debate it? That is the only question on the table for the U.S. Senate tomorrow, and we are about to find out how my Republican colleagues will answer that question.
I yield the floor.
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