On the recordJanuary 13, 2022
I thank the gentleman for yielding. In the lengthy oration of the 1 minute from the majority leader, I agreed with one word, that this is a radical bill. And the majority leader's argument is a ``throwing the baby out with the bathwater'' argument. The States in this country remain a bulwark of democracy. The rhetoric from Democrats is that democracy itself won't survive without their elections bill. Well, nothing speaks of preserving our democracy like a late-night gut and replace in the Rules Committee. A bill about NASA gets 700-plus pages added and a floor vote within 18 hours. Nothing speaks of preserving our democracy like giving Washington control of voter ID laws when 35 elected State legislatures have adopted them and 74 percent of the people favor them. People in my State voted to put it in our State constitution. Most believe elections should be made more secure. Nothing speaks more of preserving our democracy than shifting the power to set election law from 50 decentralized States, where legislatures controlled by different parties have predominantly held and exercised that power for all 233 years of our experience under the Constitution, and centralizing that power in a single agency, the Department of Justice, at any time controlled by one party.…





