On the recordJanuary 7, 2022
I am so proud to be on the floor with my colleagues Senator Durbin, Senator Merkley, and Senator Klobuchar to work on this issue of such great importance. I would like to now discuss the John Lewis Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, critical voting rights proposals that the Senate will soon take up and that the Senate needs to pass. We have tried to bring these bills to the floor in recent months. The minority party has blocked the effort to even consider the bills, with the sole exception of one Republican, the senior Senator from Alaska, who has been willing to vote to proceed to consideration of the John Lewis Act. Some of the most epic moments in the history of this Chamber have come as we grappled with voting rights. After the Civil War, the debate surrounding the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were epic struggles about the Nation's new recommitment to the equality principle after the Civil War, and those struggles included dramatic discussions about voting connected to both the 14th and 15th Amendments. The struggle for women's suffrage, culminating in the 1919 passage of the 19th Amendment in the Senate, was also a pivotal moment for this body. I believe the most dramatic voting rights struggle in the Chamber was the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Civil rights activist John Lewis and others marching for voting rights were savagely beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL, in March of 1965.…
