On the recordJuly 10, 2023
On voting rights, the great John Lewis said, ``Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to build what we called the Beloved Community.'' We should heed these words in our day and age because today House Republicans introduced their latest broadside against the fundamental right to vote, a sweeping bill that one lawmaker called ``the most substantive and conservative election integrity legislation that will come before the House in over a generation.'' Let me say that again: ``the most substantive and conservative election integrity legislation that will come before the House in over a generation.'' Democrats here in the Senate will never allow such a terrible proposal to become law, and very soon, we will once again move to bring real, much needed voting rights legislation before Congress. People think that the attacks against democracy came and went on January 6. Unfortunately, sadly, that is not true. In States as diverse as Georgia, Texas, Iowa, Florida, and Arizona, partisans have rewritten the rules of our elections in broad daylight to make it harder to vote--harder to vote--in a democracy that, of course, for centuries has hailed the right to vote and advanced it. Today's bill from Republicans is the latest example of the giant step backward the Republicans these days are taking when it comes to voting rights, and Democrats will fiercely oppose it. ____________________
