Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Republican Gaslighting In The Face Of Voter Suppression And The Need To Pass Legislation That Will Safeguard Our Democracy And Protect The Right To Vote
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the need to stand up to Donald Trump’s Big Lie and defend democracy and the right to vote. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Last week the nation observed the one-year anniversary of the greatest violent assault against our democracy since the time of the American Civil War.
Though the Capitol Attack of January 6th, 2021, was confined to a single day, the attacks on our democracy have not ceased. The Big Lie—the terrible fantasy that our elections are rife with voter fraud and that Donald Trump won the 2020 election—lives on to this day and is spreading throughout our country, used to undermine our democracy. Donald Trump is such an infantile leader that he cannot accept that he lost, so he spreads the Big Lie. But just as bad, or almost as bad, are all those in politics, in the media, and elsewhere who know it is a lie but continue to spread it, to the grave detriment to the fundamental roots of this country and democracy.
Tomorrow, President Biden will travel to Georgia and make the moral case to the nation that the time has come to act to defend democracy and protect voting rights. Every single lover of democracy across America—especially those of us in this chamber—should take heart of the President’s message and ask ourselves what we can do to protect free and fair elections in this country.
The Senate, I believe, stands ready to follow through on the President’s call. Later this week, we will hold a vote yet again on legislation to protect our democracy and protect the sacred right to vote.
Everyone in this chamber will have a chance to go on record. Will Republicans join Democrats in a bipartisan manner to move forward on defending democracy? Or will they once again mount a filibuster and offer their implicit endorsement of the Big Lie?
I hope they join us, but to date, unfortunately, I have seen precious little suggesting they will do so.
On the contrary, our Republican colleagues have gone to great lengths recently to distract from the dangers of Donald Trump’s Big Lie.
Senate Republicans are so stung by our arguments about voter fraud and the Big Lie that the Republican Leader has actually tried to argue that it’s actually Democrats pushing a Big Lie when we warn about voter suppression.
The threats of voter suppression are not false – they are dangerous. The Leader’s line of argument, the Republican Leader’s line of argument is gas-lighting, pure and simple.
The Republican Leader has pointed repeatedly to the experience of the 2020 election as proof, somehow, that there exists no effort to suppress the vote. But he ignores that the problem today is not just about what happened during the 2020 election, it’s about what’s happened after. And is happening today.
If Leader McConnell doesn’t want to get into specifics about the laws passed by Republicans legislators across this country to limit the right to vote, then we Democrats will:
Despite the fact that the 2020 election was free, fair and accurate, in the year that followed at least 19 states—suddenly!—decided to re-write the rules that govern the way people vote in their respective states.
At least 33—33—new laws have been passed across the country that will make it harder to vote, harder to register to vote, and worst of all, potentially empower partisans to arbitrate outcomes of future elections, instead of non-partisan election workers. And that may be just the beginning because legislators in various states are preparing new laws as they enter the 2022 sessions of their legislatures.
I ask my Republican colleagues: take a look at what’s happened in many of the Republican-led state legislatures:
When Republicans in states like Texas reduce polling hours and polling locations, how does that not make it harder for people to vote?
When Republicans in states like Florida, Kansas, Iowa and Texas make it harder for people to even register to vote—even to register to vote—how is that not suppressing their fundamental right to vote at all? What does that have to do with election security?
When Republicans in states like Georgia, Indiana, and Florida cut back on the number and the availability of locations where people can drop off their absentee ballots, how can Republicans say that voting hasn’t been made harder?
And when Republicans in states like Georgia make it a crime to give food and water to people waiting in line at the polls, how is that not making it harder for them to cast a ballot?
Some of the examples are especially egregious: according to one recent report, Lincoln County in Georgia is looking to eliminate all but one polling location in the entire county before the next election. One location in a whole big county.
That is disgusting—some voters who live in the county would have to drive 23 miles just to drop off a ballot. This in no way makes voting more convenient—it makes it an enormous burden.
Let’s be abundantly clear: these new anti-voter laws are on the books today because their authors cited the Big Lie, cited the fictitious bugaboo of voter fraud, and are trying to succeed where the insurrection failed. It is a slow-motion insurrection but a very, very pernicious one.
We have yet to hear, on substance, any serious attempt from Senate Republicans defending these terrible new laws. They don't mention them. The truth is our Republican colleagues cannot defend them because the goal of these laws is very clear: they are deliberately targeting all the ways that younger, poorer, and non-white Americans typically access the ballot.
And by blocking this chamber from taking any action, Senate Republicans are implicitly offering their own endorsement of the Big Lie.
Senate Democrats have been clear of our intentions from the start: the Senate must pass legislation that will safeguard our democracy and protect people’s right to vote.
It’s why we have pushed the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act numerous times here on the floor, only for Republicans to filibuster them and prevent the chamber from having so much as a debate.
By hijacking the rules of the Senate and preventing any movement, Republicans are saying they oppose policies that guarantee same-day voter registration, policies that safeguard against election subversion, policies that protect poll workers, and policies that prevent faulty and dangerous voter roll purges.
By blocking action in the Senate, Republicans are saying they oppose efforts to fight the power of dark money and efforts to end partisan gerrymandering.
Senate Republicans are saying they are perfectly fine with laws that limit voter registration, limit early voting, limit the number of polling places and drop-boxes. They are even fine with policies that criminalize giving food and drink to voters at the polls.
These laws are anathema to the very spirit of our Democracy. They are Jim Crow 2 and it is the Republican party by and large in this Senate supporting the reenactment of those Jim Crow laws.
And if Republicans refuse to join us in a bipartisan spirit—if they continue to hijack the rules of the Senate to turn this chamber into a deep freezer—we are going to consider the appropriate steps necessary to restore the Senate, so we can pass these proposals and send them to the President’s desk.
On this month—the same month we mark the one year anniversary of an armed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol—the question before the Senate is a simple one: how we will find a path forward on protecting our freedoms in the 21st century.
Members of this body must now face a choice—they can follow in the footsteps of our patriotic predecessors in this chamber.
Or they can sit by as the fabric of our democracy unravels before our very eyes.
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