On the recordJanuary 19, 2022
It is a felony. This is crazy, guys. We shouldn't be acting like the stuff that is going on in this country right now and has been going on mainly for the last year--and my fellow Senators have talked about why it is the case--we shouldn't act like it is no big deal. It is a huge deal. If we disenfranchise voters in this country, our democracy is on a slide away from democracy. As my friend Angus King has said many times on this floor, democracies are the exception, they are not the rule in history. They have happened rarely, and they happen because people understand the sacrifices it takes. We have sacrifices we need to make in this body, and part of it is, we need to ensure that everybody has equal access to the polls so that they can vote. It is fundamental to our democracy. That is why we are all sitting here. If it wasn't fundamental to our democracy, do you know what? I would be doing something else. I would be in my office working on papers or something like that--who knows. But the truth is, this is fundamental to our democracy. We can try to, you know, move the conversation and say: Why aren't we talking about the economy? Senator Kaine said it very, very well. We have dealt with economic issues. We need to continue to deal with economic issues. We have dealt with supply chain issues with the bipartisan infrastructure bill. We need to continue to work with supply chain issues as we move forward, and we will.…
