Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): “The right to vote is sacred. The Senate filibuster is not.”
Sen. Angus King (I-ME): “All-out opposition to reasonable voting rights protections cannot be enabled by the filibuster; if forced to choose between a Senate rule and democracy itself, I know where I will come down.”
Washington, DC — Today, the Senate held its first hearing on S.1, the For The People Act. This historic legislation would protect, defend, and expand voting rights and make necessary electoral and democratic reforms across the country. Despite widespread popular support, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear that he and his fellow Republicans will do everything in their power to block this critical legislation, and plan to use the filibuster as their tool of gridlock and obstruction.
"Senate Republicans are hell-bent on blocking the For the People Act, and they will use the filibuster to prevent this popular bill from even getting an up-or-down-vote,” said Fix Our Senate Spokesman Eli Zupnick. “The choice for Senate Democrats couldn't be clearer: protect voting rights and our democracy, or protect the filibuster, a 'Jim Crow relic' that Sen. McConnell has been abusing for years.”
Democratic Senators and activists made the case for why S.1 is unquestionably necessary to bring justice and equity to the people of this country:
"I would like to ask my Republican colleagues: why are you so afraid of democracy,” asked Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “Why, instead of trying to win voters over that you lost in the last election, are you trying to prevent them from voting?"
Schumer continued, "Shame, shame, shame. This is not the usual political argument. This goes to the core of our democracy."
Chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee and co-sponsor of the For the People Act Amy Klobuchar said the bill would make “voting easier,” and aims to “(get) big money out of politics and [strengthen] ethics rules."
"These are not radical proposals,” she continued. “These are ideas that nearly everyone in this country agrees with. And this bill, we can make them a reality..."
Sen. Jeff Merkley, one of the bill's authors, raised a point about how voter suppression efforts often target Black and Brown communities. Sen. Merkley said voters should be able to vote “without being sent to someplace that has no parking, without being sent to someplace where there is no staff so they have to wait in line for five hours, without worrying about whether that November election is in the middle of a snowstorm. [Voters] want to exercise that right and we have a responsibility to defend their ability to do so.”
Sen. Angus King, an Independent from Maine, said that while he was a “big supporter of state’s rights,” he ultimately saw the For the People Act as an “extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act” and, this morning in an op-ed in the Washington Post, Sen. King said that “voting rights are a special case that we must address in light of the nakedly partisan voter-suppression legislation pending in many states” when it came to filibuster reform.
Former Attorney General and President of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee Eric Holder, testifying before the Rules committee, said “Now is the time for Congress to exercise its constitutional authority to protect the structure of our representative democracy. Otherwise, we will slip deeper into a system in which self-interested politicians use the tools of governance to keep themselves in power with no regard for the desires of the people they are supposed to represent … It’s how we count every vote and make every vote count. Passing this bill will be a critical and necessary step to restoring power to the people, where it belongs.”
Republicans used lies and scare tactics in their comments on the bill:
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell falsely called the bill “a solution in search of a problem.” The reality is that there is a problem: state legislators around the country have introduced more than 250 bills in 43 states that would restrict access to the ballot. As Attorney General Holder put it, “Over the past decade, partisan actors intent on holding onto power have systematically chipped away or outright eliminated key protections for voters in a way that has undermined our representative democracy.”
Ranking member of the Rules Committee Roy Blunt warned that the For the People Act “would be an unmitigated disaster for our democracy.” The truth is that doing nothing to secure our elections, bolster voting rights, and end partisan gerrymandering would be the disaster. These are not only common sense policies that protect the right to vote, but they are broadly popular with the American people.
Momentum to get rid of the filibuster and make the Senate and this country more democratic continues to grow. Sens. Klobuchar, Smith, Warnock, and Padilla, as well as Reps. Clyburn, Schiff, and more have recently come out against the filibuster.