[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
VOTER SUPPRESSION
IN MINORITY COMMUNITIES:
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
TO PROTECT OUR FUTURE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 26, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-92
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
39-930 WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Jim Jordan, Ohio, Ranking Minority
Columbia Member
Wm. Lacy Clay, Mis6uri Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Mark Meadows, North Carolina
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Harley Rouda, California James Comer, Kentucky
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Michael Cloud, Texas
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Peter Welch, Vermont Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Jackie Speier, California Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Chip Roy, Texas
Mark DeSaulnier, California Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
Ro Khanna, California W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Jimmy Gomez, California Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Katie Porter, California
Deb Haaland, New Mexico
David Rapallo, Staff Director
Russ Anello, Chief Counsel
Amy Stratton, Clerk
Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
_________
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on February 26, 2020................................ 1
Witnesses
Mr. Timothy L. Jenkins, Board Member, Teaching for Change, Board
Member, Civil Rights Movement Archive, Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee
Oral Statement............................................... 6
Ms. Marcia Johnson-Blanco, Co-Director, Voting Rights Project,
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Oral Statement............................................... 8
Ms. Diane Nash, Civil Rights Activist, Founding Member, Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
Oral Statement............................................... 9
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, President, Repairers of the Breach
and Co-Chair, Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral
Revivial
Oral Statement............................................... 13
* The prepared statements for the above witnesses are available
at: docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
The documents listed below are available at: docs.house.gov.
* A report from the Brennan Center for Justice; submitted by
Chairwoman Maloney.
* Statement of Rep. John Lewis; submitted by Chairwoman
Maloney.
* Heritage Foundation examples of voter fraud; submitted by
Rep. Grothman.
* Letters from: Dickinson Press and Bismark Tribune; submitted
by Rep. Armstrong.
VOTER SUPPRESSION
IN MINORITY COMMUNITIES:
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
TO PROTECT OUR FUTURE
----------
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn Office Building, Hon. Carolyn Maloney
[chairwoman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Maloney, Norton, Clay, Cooper,
Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, Raskin, Wasserman Schultz, Sarbanes,
Welch, DeSaulnier, Plaskett, Khanna, Gomez, Ocasio-Cortez,
Pressley, Tlaib, Porter, Haaland, Jordan, Foxx, Massie,
Meadows, Hice, Grothman, Cloud, Gibbs, Higgins, Roy, Miller,
Green, Armstrong, and Keller.
Chairwoman Maloney. [Presiding.] Good morning, everyone.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess
of this committee at any time.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
Good morning. I thank all of you for being here today. Good
morning. Today we are examining our Nation's history of voter
suppression, as well as the obstacles that many minority
communities continue to face to this day in exercising their
fundamental right to vote. Tomorrow we will be holding a
ceremony to honor our dear friend and colleague, and our former
chairman, Elijah Cummings. We will be renaming this hearing
room after him and commending everything he stood for. Today's
hearing is also part of our efforts to honor his legacy.
Protecting the right to vote one of the most important issues,
if not the most important issue, he fought for during his
decades in public service.
We are holding this hearing in February during Black
History Month. It was black Americans whose voices were
stifled, blocked, and silenced for centuries, and it is black
Americans who are still being disproportionately targeted even
now in shameful efforts to prevent them from registering to
vote, purging their names from the voter files, and making it
harder for them to exercise their rights under the
Constitution. Last February, Chairman Cummings held a similar
hearing, one of the very first he called after becoming
chairman of this committee, and he explained his vision for our
work. I would like to play a clip from that hearing.
[Video shown.]
Chairwoman Maloney. That is a north star that everyone in
this Nation should agree with.
On this date 151 years ago, Congress passed the Fifteenth
Amendment declaring the right of citizens to vote shall not be
denied on account of race. That was beginning of a long and
deadly struggle to ensure that all American citizens can cast
their votes. This year is also the 55th anniversary of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the 55th anniversary of Bloody
Sunday when hundreds of peaceful civil rights marchers were
beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The
efforts of civil rights pioneers, some of whom are here with us
today, helped millions of Americans exercise their right to
vote.
Unfortunately, today many states are attacking the right to
vote using tactics similar to those that civil rights pioneers
battled for decades. Last year, under Chairman Cummings'
leadership, and also that of Congressman Raskin, the committee
launched an investigation of allegations in three key states:
Georgia, Texas, and Kansas. Today we are releasing some of the
documents and information we obtained as part of that
investigation.
For example, in Georgia, Secretary of State Brian Kemp
purged more than half a million votes from the rolls and
blocked the registrations of thousands more, all while running
for Governor. Emails obtained by the committee show that Mr.
Kemp and a top campaign aide congratulated each other for
confusing the public about their illegal voter roll purges. And
they also gleefully celebrated as they made it harder for
hundreds of thousands of Americans to vote. They even used
laughing and smiling emojis in a sickening display of derision.
We also examined Texas, which threatened thousands of
innocent Americans with criminal prosecution for voting
illegally, only to be forced to reverse course when it was
revealed that many, if not all, were U.S. citizens with every
right to cast their ballots. Finally, we examined Kansas, which
moved the one and only polling site in the entire city of Dodge
City, Kansas, outside the city limits without bothering to
consult with the local voters. Dodge City has a population of
more than 25,000, and they consist predominantly of minorities.
Unfortunately, these are not the only instances of
discrimination and voter suppression. For example, North
Carolina passed an extremely restrictive voter ID law, but the
Fourth Circuit struck it down, ruling that it would target
African Americans with almost surgical precision. These abuses
must end, and the House of Representatives has taken action to
stop them.
Last year, the House passed two landmark bills to protect
voting rights. H.R. 1, the For the People Act, would reduce
barriers to voting through automatic registration, same-day
voting and registration, and expanded early voting. H.R. 4
would restore and modernize the Voting Rights Act to protect
against discriminatory voting practices. Unfortunately, Senator
Mitch McConnell has refused for months to allow the Senate to
vote on these bills. Communities across America need to
mobilize now to protect the right to vote in the upcoming
elections. Every American can take action today to make sure
their voter registration is active, to learn about their
options for early or absentee voting, and to find their polling
sites.
I would like to close where I began at our hearing a year
ago, last February. During that hearing, Chairman Cummings told
the story about how he sat with his mother on her deathbed, and
this is what she said to him. And I would like to show this
moving clip now.
[Video shown.]
Chairwoman Maloney. Like his mother, Chairman Cummings has
now passed on, but his spirit is still here with us in this
very hearing as he urges us with moral clarity to protect and
defend the core of our democracy. I want to thank all of you
for coming today. I want to thank all of our witnesses for
being here. I look forward to your historic testimony. And I
now recognize the distinguished ranking member, Mr. Jordan, for
his opening statement.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank you
for your kind words about our former chairman, and I would echo
those sentiments. We all appreciate the work of Chairman
Cummings over the years and his time in Congress, and his out
of Congress as well, the great things that he was involved in
and causes he was involved in and fighting for. And I would
urge all my colleagues to be here tomorrow afternoon when this
room will be dedicated to the late chairman.
I want to also thank you, Chairman Maloney, for calling
this hearing, and thank you for all our witnesses who are here
today. The right to vote in free and fair elections is a
bedrock principle of American democracy. Through various
constitutional amendments, the right to vote has been expanded
to all citizens, regardless of race, color, gender, and age
requirement has been lowered actually to 18 years old. The most
recent expansion took place in 1986 when Congress passed a law
allowing U.S. servicemembers to vote while stationed overseas.
These Federal actions to improve voting rights are
important, and we must remember that voting has traditionally
been and should remain a state and local responsibility. Some
groups argue that voting is too hard, that it is too
complicated, and that these complications drive voters away.
However, a recent study contradicts these claims. According to
the study conducted by the Knight Foundation, only eight
percent of nonvoters said they did not have time to make it to
the polls, and only five percent said they did not vote because
they were not registered. Additionally, only eight percent said
they did not vote because it was too complicated, and only
three percent said that changing the registration process would
actually motivate them to vote. In fact, almost 90 percent of
voters surveyed by the Knight Foundation said that voting was
easy.
As states work to ensure that access to voting is fair, we
should not forget about threats to election integrity. We must
ensure that every eligible citizen's vote is counted and that
votes are not stolen or diluted through voter fraud. Today the
Democrats are going to try to paint a picture of mass voter
suppression by releasing 13 cherry-picked documents from over
1.3 million pages in their months'-long investigation into the
2018 midterm elections. They are going to say these documents
show a coordinated attempt to suppress minority votes, but, in
fact, they do not.
These documents show little more than election officials
attempting to ensure honest and secure elections. That is what
their job is. That is their responsibility. They show these
officials doing their job by ensuring only citizens are voting,
by ensuring only eligible voters are on the voter rolls, and by
taking any allegation of cybercrime seriously. In one of the
most backward allegations, the Democrats argue that the state
of Georgia should not have contacted authorities regarding a
potential cyberattack. They argue that because Georgia did not
produce proof of the attack to the committee, that the attack
did not occur. That claim is just ridiculous. The Georgia
Bureau of Investigation is currently looking into the matter,
and cybersecurity experts unanimously found that there was an
attempted breach of the voter rolls.
The release of these documents is simply a smokescreen to
distract from serious issues in our elections, like voter
fraud. In 2018, California falsely registered 23,000 voters,
including almost 2,000 non-citizens. This is no minor issue.
Twenty-three thousand votes could have changed the outcome of
the 2016 Presidential election in Michigan, New Hampshire,
Wisconsin, or Nevada. In New York, there have been 25
convictions for voter fraud and related offenses, including
false registrations and duplicate voting. In Maryland, there
have been eight voter fraud convictions, and I could go on and
on.
Voter fraud is a real issue that needs to be addressed. Any
discussion about relaxing voter requirements should also
include how states are going to defend against voter fraud. I
hope we can discuss this important aspect here today as well.
Again, I would like to thank all our witnesses being here
today, and we look forward to your testimony. Thank you, Madam
Chair, and I yield back, or actually, if it is OK----
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
Mr. Jordan [continuing]. I would like to yield to Mr.
Meadows.
Chairwoman Maloney. I will now recognize Mr. Meadows to
speak about our dear friend, Chairman Cummings.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for your
leadership. I want to thank all witnesses for being here and
for your testimony that you are about to give, but I wanted to
take just a couple of minutes to talk about my good friend,
Chairman Cummings. When you get to see a video of his passion
and his willingness to engage, what comes to my mind the most
about my good friend, Elijah Cummings, was two words: fairness
and compassion. Those two words not only were emblematic of a
friendship that the two of us had, but it was also a
characteristic of the way that he conducted himself as chairman
and as ranking member.
And I had the privilege to serve with him in both of those
capacities. And he is one that always wanted to make sure the
person who didn't have a voice had a voice here in Washington,
DC, and so you being here today certainly highlights that. And
I want to make sure that we do, because the other thing that he
was always willing to do was to cut to the chase. Our private
offices were just diagonal from one another just down the
hallway here, and I would go in, and being the member with less
seniority, I would always go to the member with more seniority.
I would go to his office, and we would sit down, and we would
have very frank conversations on what legislation could mean,
what it did mean, and the political ramifications.
So, here is what I would ask. In the spirit of two words
from my good friend, effective and efficient, what I would love
to hear from all the witnesses today are the ways that we can
be most effective and efficient with legislation to make sure
that every vote is counted, and every individual has the
opportunity to vote. So, many times what we do is we try to put
a big narrative based on real problems, but based on problems
that may be isolated here or there, and we try to put a big
narrative on it.
And what I would ask all of you to do is, in honoring my
good friend, Elijah Cummings, give specific examples on what
you think that we could do from a Federal standpoint to help
address any issue that is discriminatory or that
disenfranchises any people group. And I thank you, Madam Chair,
for your leadership, and I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses. And I yield back.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Today I am honored to turn
to our distinguished colleague from the District of Columbia,
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, to introduce our
witnesses. Congressman Norton is a civil rights legend in her
own right. As a young woman, she was a member of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, a civil rights
organization founded by young student activists, including two
of our distinguished witnesses, Diane Nash and Timothy Jenkins.
Congresswoman Norton organized and fought for civil rights
and human rights as a student as head of the New York City
Human Rights Commission and as the first woman to chair the
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She has continued
to champion these causes here in the United States and
throughout the world as a lawyer, a scholar, and, since 1991,
as our colleague in the U.S. House of Representatives. I
recognize the distinguished representative from the District of
Columbia.
Ms. Norton. I thank my good friend, Chairwoman Maloney, for
her very generous words concerning me, but I thank her, most of
all, for giving the opportunity to introduce the witnesses
today. This is normally the work of the chair of the committee.
Two of these witnesses were directly engaged in work to assure
that there would be no state obstacles to the right to vote,
and they must be very proud of how that work has, in fact,
benefited millions of Americans. They were in the core and the
thick of the Civil Rights Movement.
My only regret is that our colleague, John Lewis, who,
though not a member of this committee, would certainly be here
today if he could. He, of course, John, of course, was chair of
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. And I do want to
note another of our colleagues is in the audience, Frank Smith,
also an alumnus of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, whom I first met in Mississippi.
These witnesses will have only five minutes, which is, of
course, the rules of the committee, and so I hope, particularly
the witnesses who can give us perspective on what we have got
to do now in renewing the Voting Rights Act, can talk about
their own role so that we can have something to compare what we
are going through today in voter suppression with what they
experienced as student activists. Their perspective from that
period can best inform our work in combatting the obstacles we
face now in the House in renewing the Voting Rights Act.
So, I am pleased to introduce our witnesses. They will be
Reverend Dr. William Barber, the president of Repairers of the
Breach and co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign; Diane Nash,
a civil right leader and one of the founding members of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Tim Jenkins, also my
law school classmate and a founding member of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Today he is an attorney and
an activist, and currently serves on the boards of Teaching for
Change and the Civil Rights Movement Archive. Finally, Marcia
Johnson-Blanco is the co-director of the Voting Rights Project
for the Lawyers' Committee's for Civil Rights Under Law. Thank
you very much, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you very much. We had hoped that
John Lewis would be here and be our lead witness, but I now ask
unanimous consent to place in the record his statement, so he
is certainly here with leadership and in spirit.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you, and I will begin now by
swearing in the witnesses, if you will all please rise and
raise your right hand.
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to
give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
[A chorus of ayes.]
Chairwoman Maloney. Let the record show that the witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
Thank you, and please be seated. The microphones are
sensitive, so please pull them to you and speak directly into
it, and without objection, your written statement will be made
part of the record. And with that, Mr. Jenkins, you are now
recognized to provide your testimony.
STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY L. JENKINS, BOARD MEMBER, TEACHING FOR
CHANGE BOARD MEMBER, CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ARCHIVE, STUDENT
NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE
Mr. Jenkins. The heading for today's hearing is ``Learning
from the Past to Protect Our Future.'' I would add my subtext
of ``Righting Today's Echoes of Past Political Exclusion.'' My
name is Timothy Jenkins, and in the 1960's, I was, as
mentioned, one of the founding members of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, commonly referred to by its
initials, SNCC. And I served as its chief lobbyist before the
U.S. Congress during the tumultuous events surrounding the
drafting of the ultimate passage of the Voting Rights Act of
1965. I'm here today to advocate needed additional legislative
remedies in the face of renewed connivances to undercut the
historic success of that earlier legislation and, not to
mention, a legitimate interpretation of the Constitution.
While I'm here as a SNCC survivor, I do not want America to
forget the moral depth of that interracial, interfaith trio of
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, who were
of the SNCC members' number, who were murdered in 1964 in
Philadelphia, Mississippi while working as unpaid volunteers
seeking to enable black citizens to have the right to vote. We,
the surviving members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, find that it is still our vital duty now, just as it
was when we were formed in 1960, to never allow America to
falter in her commitment for the equal protection of all
citizens. We have staked our lives based on our faith that this
country must uphold the intentions to continuously strive to
form a more perfect union and establish justice.
The loss of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner is a grave
reminder of the atrocities that we suffered when we, the
people, were allowed to refer to some rather than all. In the
South, our tactics for expanding voter registration among
minorities and challenging historic acts of voter suppression
proved to be especially fruitful when a proposed provision
offered in our 1963 legislative testimony was enacted in
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I would think it
useful for members of the committee to look at the testimony
that we submitted in 1964 that gives in some 100 pages more
than I can give in the five minutes that I have today, because
in that testimony, it enumerates graphically all of the kinds
of abuses that we went through to try and get people registered
to vote, which are now not part of our current dialog.
I urge those of you who have the energy to look at the
legislative history in the congressional Record of that
testimony and the invitation that was given to us by Emanuel
Celler, who was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and our
testimony was submitted before the Judiciary Committee. This
provision has, since in our testimony in the Voting Rights Act
of 1965, been gutted by the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby
v. Holder in the year 2013, a ruling based on the false
contention that the prevalence of discrimination in this
country is outdated.
In 1963, Robert Moses joined with me and Charles Sherrod to
describe in our testimony the immense and intense obstacles to
African Americans and how we had to mobilize the community to
encounter and counteract those abuses. More recently, in both
Georgia and Mississippi, through private and public measures of
intimidation, African Americans were purged from voting. There
is proof that such discrimination and discriminatory procedures
are still at large today, as evident in Georgia's recent
removal of 100,000 names from the rolls and rapid closure of
polling locations in Mississippi. Although the forms have
shifted, echoes of the past, exclusion, still haunt the
present, and will persist in plaguing the future if we do not
mend the legislative cracks in our system that divide us.
If Congress believes that voting is a fundamental right of
every U.S. citizen, it is now the responsibility of Congress to
enact franchise for all people. This is a not a question of the
ability of Congress, but the willingness to adopt and enforce
laws that will safeguard minorities against any exploitations
pursued by tyrannical majorities at the local level. In 1787,
when confronted with the question of whether we were going to
have a monarchy or whether we were going to have a democracy,
Benjamin Franklin responded, ``It will be a republic if you can
keep it.''
Unfortunately, centuries later, in our year 2020, we have
yet to demonstrate a republic that is genuinely representative
and exemplified by its unequivocal protection of fundamental
rights. The prime example is the fact that the crusade against
voter fraud is more propagating our legislative initiatives
than the facts. The phenomenon that is providing adequate proof
of existence still does not exist. According to election
experts and Members of Congress themselves, individuals are
more likely to be struck by lightening than to commit in-person
voter fraud, but in-person voter fraud seems to be the only
focus of today's actions that are masking as voter protection.
Due to this lack of statistical evidence to warrant the
burgeoning of states enforcing strict signature requirements
and photo IDs, the American people must question the purpose
and implications of these laws. Through the authority allowed
by Shelby County v. Holder, the other approaches in voter
suppression, racial minority groups, disabled, low-income, and
elderly individuals are being eliminated from our political
system at an alarming rate. The frequency of these different
actions is something that requires major initiatives.
When the Constitution was originally adopted, the use of
the words ``we the people'' was done, but it did not include
blacks, women, indigenous people, or those without property as
an equally entitled----
Chairwoman Maloney. Can you summarize? You are well over
your time, and close? We have to keep to our schedule.
Mr. Jenkins. I have submitted to the record the written
testimony, and one of the things that I would like to have in
the dialog that we pursue is an opportunity to enlarge upon the
beginnings of what we are saying because there's an African
expression that a river that forgets its source dries up. We
the people of the day before yesterday want to talk to the
people who are the people of tomorrow in our testimony.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Ms. Johnson-Blanco, you are
now recognized for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF MARCIA JOHNSON-BLANCO, CO-DIRECTOR, VOTING RIGHTS
PROJECT, LAWYERS' COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER LAW
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member
Jordan, and members of the Committee on Oversight and Reform,
thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony regarding
voter suppression in minority communities today. My name is
Marcia Johnson-Blanco, and I co-direct the Voting Rights
Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law,
where I oversee the project's programmatic and advocacy
portfolio.
Almost seven years after the Shelby County v. Holder
decision, which nullified a major section, Section 5, of the
Voting Rights Act, we are in danger of undermining the progress
made by that act. The Lawyers' Committee is a national civil
rights organization created at the request of President John F.
Kennedy in 1963 to mobilize the private bar to address issues
of racial discrimination. From the beginning, a major part of
our work has been combatting voting discrimination.
In striking the formula that determined which jurisdictions
with a history of discrimination had to submit voting changes,
the Supreme Court conceded that voting discrimination still
exists--no one doubts that--even at the time it was admonishing
this body that the formula should be based on current
conditions. Well, current conditions showing voting
discrimination existed at the time of the Shelby decision and
continue to exist today. Examples of discrimination, which
disproportionately impact the ability of minority voters to
vote, are: using procedures like exact match not to process
voter registration applications; challenging and removing
voters from the rolls; cuts to early voting; restrictive voter
ID requirements; closure and consolidation of polling places;
excessive voter purges; aggressive rejection of absentee
ballots; violation of laws requiring assistance to voters with
limited English proficiency; and barriers to the vote for
returning citizens upon completion of their sentence.
Significantly, the Department of Justice has been largely
absent in the face of this voting discrimination. Since the
Shelby County decision, the Justice Department has filed three
suits against voting changes that discriminate and that would
have been precleared under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
By contrast, the Lawyers' Committee has brought 14 cases
involving voting changes, 11 of which were in jurisdictions
formerly covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
In short, efforts to block access to the ballot continue.
Findings of discrimination that were present when the Supreme
Court decided the Shelby County decision illustrate that
current conditions exist and do require not only the full
protections of the Voting Rights Act, but robust enforcement of
all Federal laws. The Department of Justice needs to do more.
It needs to be more of a partner with organizations like the
Lawyers' Committee, who fight against voting discrimination.
And it is important that Congress act to ensure that there
is no backsliding after a many-decade trajectory of passing
laws to ensure the promise of our democracy that all eligible
citizens have access to the ballot. This was begun with passage
of the For the People Act, H.R. 1,and the Voting Rights
Advancement Act by this body, and this important work must
continue to ensure that we don't backslide, and that all
eligible voters have access to the ballot, and that their votes
will be counted. Thank you.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Ms. Nash, you are now
recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF DIANE NASH, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST AND FOUNDING
MEMBER, STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE
Ms. Nash. Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member Jordan,
members of the committee, fellow citizens who are present, I
want to begin by acknowledging the work of Reverend James
Bevel. He was my former husband who is now deceased. James and
I were partners in our work on the Selma right to vote
movement, which was one of the major efforts that led to
passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Our son, Douglass
Bevel, is present today and contributed to the forming of my
statements to this committee.
The letter from Chairwoman Maloney inviting me to testify
today said, ``The hearing will examine current barriers
Americans, especially those in minority communities, face in
exercising the right to vote, and lessons from the Civil Rights
Movement about how we can overcome these barriers to ensure the
2020 election is free and fair.'' Black voters and many non-
black voters are in a worse place now than we were when the
Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Then we did not have
Citizens United. Citizens who can't afford to make campaign
contributions and those cannot afford to make large
contributions do not have parity with wealthier voters. We need
to establish one person-one vote.
Progress had been made with the signing of the Voting
Rights Act of 1965. I believe that Supreme Court Justices
Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts, who voted to gut
the Voting Rights Act, knew that removing the provision that
required states to receive Federal approval for changes in
voting procedures would result in the curtailing of voting
rights for minorities. I do not believe for one second that
they really though the provision was no longer needed, as
Justice Roberts wrote. We knew the result would be
gerrymandering and voter suppression, and those five justices
knew it also because they are as smart as you and I. So, five
justices of the U.S. Supreme Court suppressed voting rights and
undermined democracy deliberately.
Sometimes those opposed to descendants of enslaved Africans
having equal rights undo progress that has been made, and civil
rights organizations spend years working to recover progress
that was unnecessarily rolled back. They give us a hamster
wheel on which to run. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael
Schwerner, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Viola Liuzzo, Reverend James
Reed, and others' lives were taken. People were beaten into
unconsciousness. People were beaten and permanently injured,
fired from jobs, and families were evicted from their homes in
order to obtain the right to vote. I do not appreciate what
those five justices did.
It's not the first time. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court
Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote for the majority, wrote
that the Negro had ``no rights which the white man was bound to
respect.'' Legislation to restore measures lost when the
Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act is needed, but it is
not enough. To stop there would be to climb onto the hamster
wheel. We need legislation to get money out of political
campaigns and have government funding of political campaigns.
We need to abolish the Electoral College. Political parties
need to eliminate superdelegates. All these exist because some
citizens try to gain advantage and have more power than other
citizens. We need paper ballots so that the vote totals can be
documented.
If we expect foreign countries to respect our democracy and
not meddle in our elections, we need to stop interfering in
their elections. We need to stop with regime change when a
country chooses the government that the United States
administration doesn't like. ``You reap what you sow,''
``chickens come home to roost,'' ``what goes around comes
around'' are proverbs that have come about over time because
they contain truth and wisdom. How would we like it if another
country did not approve of a President we elected and they
proceeded to bomb our country and install someone acceptable to
them as head of our government? Regime change.
You have to practice fairness yourself, not just when you
are being treated unfairly. We should all be constantly looking
for unfairness and trying to correct it. Some examples of
unfairness that I want to cite are, I think that at the
beginning of the primary season during the first couple of
debates, all candidates should be given equal time to speak.
Since television is how most people become familiar with
candidates and what they stand for, networks should have to
give equal time to candidates, at least for a reasonable period
at the beginning of the primary season. Networks should not be
allowed to usurp the function of voters by attempting to
influence the outcome of elections by featuring some candidates
and ignoring others, especially early in the process.
When I received the invitation to testify before your
committee today, I decided that if I could make a contribution,
even a small one, toward stopping the slide of our country away
from democracy and toward authoritarianism, it would be well
worth to travel here today. Forces that want to send the United
States of America into an authoritarian government control the
presidency, the Department of Justice, the majority of the
Senate, and the majority of the Supreme Court. Even if he loses
the election of November 2020, I cannot envision President
Trump making a concession speech. Rather, I can only believe
that he is likely to say that the election was unfair and that,
in fact, he won. My counsel is that you should decide now
exactly and specifically, key words are ``exactly'' and
``specifically,'' who will remove him from the presidency
should that scenario occur. Don't be caught at the time trying
to decide who's going to remove him.
Just like the intelligence apparatus is being reshaped, we
should assume that similar efforts are going on in the
military. When people in the 1960's were risking our lives to
get the right to vote, we really thought that if we got a
number of blacks and some right-intentioned non-blacks in
political positions, the lives of black people as a whole would
be improved. What we didn't see coming was that individuals
would be elected to office and would consider their positions
their personal jobs instead of representing their constituents,
and that many would be more concerned with being elected for
additional terms instead of representing to the best of their
ability their constituents. The Civil Rights Movement in the
southern United States followed many of Mohandas Gandhi's
teachings. Being truthful was one of his most basic teaching.
When a person or a country has gotten off the path, truth will
lead one back to a better direction. One of the principles of
nonviolence is that it is a mistake to cooperate with wrong
things.
Some examples of what I think were mistakes. About a year
before President Obama's term was over, the Senate refused to
consider the President's appointment for the Supreme Court.
Republicans were allowed to get away with that. Democrats were
fond of saying no one is above the law, yet when persons
ignored subpoenas----
Chairwoman Maloney. Ms. Nash, your time is well past. Can
we tie it up now?
Ms. Nash. I will just be a few more minutes.
Chairwoman Maloney. OK. Great. OK.
Ms. Nash. When persons ignored subpoenaed issued by the
House of Representatives, they were allowed to be above the
law. Violators should've been treated like most Americans are
treated if we ignore lawful subpoenas. Marshals should've
arrested them and court challenges should be worried about
later. When Brett Kavanaugh's nomination for the Supreme Court
was in question and only a sham investigation took place, he
was allowed to become a justice. When witnesses and documents
were denied as evidence in the impeachment trial, that was
allowed. The government should've been shut down until all the
documents and witnesses you wanted were produced. You should
still shut it down until you get the documents and witnesses
you want. They were necessary in order to have a fair trial.
Now they are necessary----
Chairwoman Maloney. I want to remind you that your written
testimony will be made part of the permanent record, and we are
now almost at 10 minutes when your time allotted was five
minutes.
Ms. Nash. Chairwoman Maloney, with deep respect, before I
left Chicago, I sent a copy of my statement, told the staff how
long it would be, and told them if I would not be allowed to
finish the statement, I wouldn't come.
Chairwoman Maloney. OK. All right. Well, thank you for
making that point. OK.
Ms. Nash. So, I really would----
Chairwoman Maloney. Pleas continue with your statement.
Ms. Nash. Thank you.
Chairwoman Maloney. OK.
Ms. Nash. All right. They were necessary in order to have a
fair trial. Now those documents and witnesses are necessary for
voters to have the information we need in order to cast
informed votes in November.
The House of Representatives has more power than you've
been willing to use. You can stop funding certain items. Be
proportional. Smaller issues require stringent measures. Very
important matters require serious responses. What are you
putting up with now? Is the Senate refusing to act on bills
you've sent them? Are some of those bills designed to protect
our elections, including the election of November 2020? You can
stop cooperating until what you need to have happen happens. To
persons who are fired or resigned from this Administration,
please do not go away quietly. Speak up. Hold a press
conference. Tell the voters what is happening. We need to know
so that we can make informed choices.
When you're dealing with people like those in the current
Administration, who are willing to be unlawful and who
disregard the Constitution, who will take and promptly violate
oaths, you have to be as bold as they. You teach people how to
treat you, as Dr. Phil says. Democracy and the republic are
being assaulted. The democratic elements in the government and
we citizens had better begin to act accordingly. Our
grandchildren and their progeny are depending on us not to
allow the republic to be lost on our watch.
I was coordinator of the Freedom Rides to desegregate
interstate bus travel in 1961. Before they boarded the buses,
several freedom riders gave me envelopes that they asked me to
mail in the event of their deaths. The founding fathers and
mothers took up arms against the king. If they had lost the
Revolutionary War, they would've been executed. It took work
and sacrifice and courage to establish this republic. Keeping
this profound gift, the republic they obtained for us, will
continue take work and sacrifice and courage.
Like Irving Berlin, my prayer for our country is that the
Creator will stand beside her and guide her through the night
with a light from above. God bless the United States of America
and all the people of this planet.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. And Reverend Barber, mm-hmm.
STATEMENT OF REV. DOC. WILLIAM J. BARBER, II, PRESIDENT,
REPAIRERS OF THE BREACH, AND CO-CHAIR, POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN:
A NATIONAL CALL FOR MORAL REVIVAL
Reverend Barber. We are sitting in the presence of a mother
of the Movement, and in my tradition, we applaud a mother for
her courage.
[Applause.]
Reverend Barber. Chairman Maloney, may I stand because of
an ADA issue?
Chairwoman Maloney. Absolutely.
Reverend Barber. I want to thank you, Chairwoman, and
Ranking Member, and all of the congresspersons that are here. I
have sent in extensive written words to this committee that
have been entered into the record. I want to say that even from
recent history and the continuing reality of voter suppression,
there are some things we must know. And I come from North
Carolina, where we have seen the worst attacks since June 25 of
2013.
What is it that we now know? We know when racist
gerrymandering plans can be implemented without proper
preclearance, state legislatures in the South and other places
will justify and will draw racist plans that create
supermajorities that are, as one judge has said,
unconstitutionally constituted and disenfranchise black, brown,
native, and poor voters. We know that after these
unconstitutionally constituted state legislatures and
congressional delegations are seated, they will lie about voter
fraud as a pretext for passing racist voter suppression laws
targeted at black, brown, and poor voters. And we know this
experience, especially in the South, where the South represents
170 of the 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
We call this, and the courts have called this, surgical
racism. For instance, in North Carolina, after we had won same-
day registration, early voting, and registration for 17-year-
olds, extremists in the state legislature passed an omnibus
voter suppression bill as soon as the Shelby decision came
down, stripping the Voting Rights Act of its preclearance
requirements. One legislator said, ``Now that the headache has
been removed, we can begin,'' and they started rolling back the
voter extensions that voters had used in the previous two
election cycles. It took us four years in courts, over 1,000
arrests, for North Carolina NAACP, Moral Monday, Forward
Together, and others to turn back what should have never been
passed by the state legislature in the first place, because, as
a Federal court said, and the Supreme Court affirmed, it was
surgical and intentional racism.
That is why I wish my good friend, Mr. Meadows, was still
here from North Carolina, I believe, because I wanted to ask
him to truly be a friend to the friend he claims in Elijah
Cummings and support his vision to deal with voter suppression,
because if you can't support truth, friendship is really
questionable. Since 2013, Senate Leader McConnell and Speakers
Boehner and Ryan worked to keep Congress from fixing the Voting
Rights Act. Today is 2,437 days that Republicans in Congress
have refused to fix the Voting Rights Act, and some Democrats
have refused to make this a central issue in campaign politics
and push hard enough to expose what it going on.
Strom Thurmond filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957
for one day, and we called him a racist. The Congress has
refused to fix the Voting Rights Act for 2,437 days today. We
don't know all that Russia did, but we know what voter
suppression has done. Let me be clear. The politicians in state
houses and congressional delegations who benefit from racist
voter suppression share a policy agenda when they get in
office. They have worked as a bloc to attack anti-poverty
measures, attack expanding access to healthcare. They vote
against living wages. They block policies that hurt poor white
people the most since the total number of poor and low-wealth
whites is 66 million in raw numbers, and 26 million are black
people. They fight against earned income tax and long-term
unemployment.
This is the great and ugly irony of racist voter
suppression. The very people who use it to attain power, once
they get that power, they exercise it in ways that hurt mostly
poor white people, which Dr. King spoke of at the end of the
Selma to Montgomery march, that every time there is the
possibility for poor whites and poor blacks to come together
and vote and transition the society, we always have these
efforts. Black, brown people in percentages are poorer, but in
raw numbers, more are white. It gives us an impoverished
democracy, what we're seeing. And it is nothing more than James
Crow, Esquire, in a suit perpetrating as a racist in a suit
rather than a sheet.
So, the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral
Revival, has identified the following necessary investments in
democracy and equal protection under the law, which we believe
are inextricably interlinked morally and constitutionally. No.
1, we demand the immediate full restoration and expansion of
the Voting Rights Act with a formula coverage--hear me,
Democrats--with a formula coverage that ensures coverage and
reinstates preclearance, at a minimum, to the formerly covered
states and jurisdictions, and an end to racist gerrymandering
and redistricting. And we call for early registration of 17-
year-olds, automatic registration at the age of 18, early
voting in every state, same-day registration, the enactment of
Election Day as a holiday, and a verifiable paper record.
We demand the right to vote for the currently and formerly
incarcerated. We demand that. We also demand adequate funding
for polling places to accommodate full participation in the
electorate. We demand statehood, and voting rights, and
representation for the residents of Washington, DC. We demand
the reversal of state laws preempting local governments from
passing minimum wage increases and the removal of emergency
financial management positions that are unaccountable to the
democratic process.
We demand that first-nation Native Americans and Alaska
Native people retain their tribal recognition as nations, not
races, to make substantive claims to their sovereignty and have
full access to the ballot. We demand a clear and just
immigration system that strengthens our democracy through the
broad participation of everyone in this country. This includes
providing a timely citizenship process that guarantees the
right to vote. It also requires protecting immigrants'
abilities to organize for their rights in the workplace and
their communities without fear of retribution, detention, or
deportation. We demand equality and safety of all persons
regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity, and we
demand equal treatment and accessible housing, healthcare,
public transportation, and adequate income and services for
people with disabilities.
We call for a full televised debate on voting rights, and
we declare that voter suppression is sin. We do not give voting
rights to parakeets, puppies, and pets. We only give it to
citizens who are 18 years and older, so to suppress the vote is
to, in fact, suggest that you have entered a God space and you
can determine other people's reality. And to suppress the vote
is to suggest that other people do not have the same Imago Dei,
the image of God, in you.
Suppressing the vote is a form of political and theological
idolatry and sin, and it has no place in this democracy. And on
this Ash Wednesday, I call on those who have fought against
right to vote, and have lied about voter fraud, and who have
pushed voter suppression, and who have smiled smirkingly at it,
repent. Repent, for the Bible says, ``Whoa unto those who
legislate evil and rob the poor of their rights and make women
and children their prey.''
[Applause.]
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. I now recognize myself for
five minutes for questions. Ms. Johnson-Blanco, the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 helped put an end to many of these abuses
that you all testified to, but recently we have seen renewed
efforts to suppress votes through voter purges, poll closures,
and other tactics. Our committee has been investigating many of
these abuses. For example, in Georgia, the state purged more
than 500,000 citizens from the voter rolls before the 2018
elections. In Texas, the state issued an advisory claiming
erroneously that thousands of people had illegally voted and
threatened these individuals with criminal prosecutions. And in
Dodge City, Kansas, a majority Latino city, local officials
moved the only polling place outside the city and gave the
wrong address to some new voters. So, my question to you, Mrs.
Johnson-Blanco, what impact do these tactics have on minority
communities?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. In short, they keep----
Chairwoman Maloney. Put on your microphone.
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Yes, Chairwoman. In short, they keep a
substantial number of minority voters from being able to access
the ballot. These laws that have been passed, the way they have
been implemented have a disproportionate impact on minority
voters, and our litigation has shown that to be true. When, for
example, Gwinnett County in Georgia aggressively rejected
absentee ballots, it was disproportionately against minority
voters. The exact match that Georgia implemented that did not
allow for voter registration was disproportionately implemented
against minority voters. So, when these laws are passed, what
they do is, in essence, keep minority voters from the ballot.
Chairwoman Maloney. And also, Ms. Johnson-Blanco,
proponents of new barriers to voting often claim that they are
trying to stop ``voter fraud.'' Is this a legitimate
explanation of these actions?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. No, it isn't because, in essence, what
they are doing is keeping eligible voters from the ballot. In
our Texas photo ID case, for example, our records show that
there were 600,000 registered voters who didn't have the
restricted voter IDs that Texas required. So, what is isolated
instances of voter fraud cannot be used to keep thousands of
legitimate voters from the ballot.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. And, Reverend Barber, just
like the poll taxes and literacy tests from 50 years ago,
today's voter suppression tactics are race neutral on their
face, but they disproportionately impact black and brown
communities. What do you believe is motivating the states that
are aggressively pursuing efforts to limit the right to vote?
Reverend Barber.
Reverend Barber. Well, sometimes----
Chairwoman Maloney. Yes, Reverend Barber.
Reverend Barber. Sometimes they seem to be on their face,
but the courts have said it is intentional. We were actually
told not to try not to prove intentional racism, but we knew it
was intentional and we proved in the court. We also know that
the demographic shifts are driving this because we know right
now that if you register two to ten percent of poor and low-
wealth people who are black and brown and white, in the South
particularly, and you get 30 percent unregistered black voters
to vote, you can fundamentally change all of the southern
states. And we know the battleground is those 170 electoral
votes that are in just 14 states in these United States.
We also noted in our state, we saw a massive increase in
voting after we won same-day registration and early voting. The
first thing this unconstitutionally constituted legislature did
was they went after same-day registration and early voting. I
want this committee to hear this. They did not stop a program
to extend the vote from being implemented. They took a program
that voters had already used in two election cycles that was
critical in 2008. They rolled back what citizens had actually
used for two election cycles because of the fear of the fusion
coalition of black and brown and white people that can come
together when we have access to the ballot.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. My time has expired. I am
grateful to all of the witnesses for your tireless work, your
dedication to protecting the right to vote. And I now recognize
the gentleman, Mr. Hice from Georgia, for as much time as he
needs because many people spoke past their time. Mr. Hice?
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that, and I
will stay within my limits. I thank each of the witnesses here
and for this hearing, the purpose of which is to make sure that
there is no voter suppression and learn more about that, and
also voter fraud. The thing is we want to maintain voter
integrity in this country. And I want to speak specifically to
some issues in Georgia that have come up that are misleading
and just wrong, and I want to correct the record on some of
those things.
The fact is it has never been easier to register or to vote
in the state of Georgia. In fact, this last election, all
demographic groups had record number turnouts, and that is
because of the efforts that have taken place in Georgia to make
voter registration and voting easier and more accessible to
everyone. This last election, midterm 2018, had 55 percent of
eligible voters in Georgia actually voted. That is a record,
and it is in every demographic category, compared to 2016 or
2014 of 38 percent, and in 2010, it was 40 percent, and now 55
percent turnout. That is 17 percent better than the previous
midterm election.
And I am proud that within those statistics, that the
turnout of minority groups across the board dramatically
increased compared to 2014. African American turnout, for
example, increased 32-and-a-half percent. Hispanics and Asian
Americans in the 90-percentile increased. These are drastic
increases because of the effort not to suppress, but to get
voters of all demographic groups to participate.
And I know that we went to great lengths in Georgia. In
fact, in 2016 we started the automated voter registration, and
since 2016 with Georgia doing it, many other states have
participated as well. But, again, it has never been easier in
Georgia for people to register. It has never been easier in
Georgia for people to actually vote. And yet we hear examples
that have come up.
I heard mentioned that some 53,000 Georgians were not
allowed to register. Their applications were placed on hold by
the Secretary of state's office. That is just wrong. In the
first place, processing of voter registration in the state of
Georgia is not even handled by the Secretary of State. It is
handled by the local counties. It is on the county level where
those voter registrations are taking place. If someone in a
county had a problem with their voter registration, they
received a letter from their county, not from the Secretary of
State. And in that letter from their county, they were told
that their status is pending. They were told why it is pending.
They were told what needs to be done to correct the problem.
And then it may surprise some in this room, they were told
in the letter that they could still vote. Yes, they could still
vote. They had to show up, and they were also told the location
of where to go. They would get a ballot just like everyone
else, but they had to come with a voter ID just like everyone
else in the state of Georgia has to show up with, but they
could still vote. That is reasonable. Every effort in the world
was made to let them know what the problem was, how to correct
it, and where to still go vote, and that they were allowed to
vote. And the allegations here are just not true.
Some other things. Comments were made that county and state
officials closed more than 200 polling places. Again, that is
very misleading. In the first place, again, state officials
cannot close polling locations. That, again, is something that
is done on the county level. But second, our most populated
counties and areas in the state of Georgia added polling
locations, and that has been taking place since 2012. And
third, there was notable increase of individuals voting early.
This is extremely important. Since 2014, Georgia has seen a 125
percent increase in early voting, and, again, it is counties
that handle the polling and so forth, not the state.
So, there was another allegation that hundreds of voting
machines were missing. Well, the truth is that was because a
Federal judge ordered those hundreds of voting machines held up
because of a lawsuit that was taking place by some activists,
and the three counties involved in that urged the judge to
reconsider because it could affect voting, but repeatedly, the
plaintiffs' counsels refused to cooperate.
So, Madam chair, I see I have gone over by 30 seconds. I
said I wouldn't do that. I appreciate your indulgence for a
moment with that, but I did want to set some of the record
straight as it relates to Georgia, and with that, I yield back.
Chairwoman Maloney. I thank the gentleman. The gentlewoman
from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton, is recognized for
five minutes.
Ms. Norton. It was interesting to hear the gentleman from
Georgia recount the ways, the many ways, in which Georgia has
succeeded in ridding the state of some of its practices. We
know that some of that is true because Democrats took back this
House last year. That would not have happened if many African
Americans hadn't insisted on overcoming barriers, barriers like
purging. And I just want to cite for the gentleman from Georgia
the extraordinary number of voters in his state, half a
million, who were purged, and most of them were people of
color.
I also looked at other states to try to have something to
compare Georgia with, and that is why my question goes to
purging. In Ohio, which is not under the Voting Rights Act,
almost as many, 460,000; in Wisconsin, 200,000 purged. So, I
would go first to Ms. Johnson-Blanco. I am trying to understand
what the response is to some purging, what purging means that
may be legitimate and may occur in northern and southern
states, and whether or not we are meeting purging that may be a
violation of the Voting Rights Act. So, would you clarify for
us what would be legitimate purging and the kinds of purging
when you get half a million voters purged surely involves some
errors or some intent?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Yes, Congresswoman Norton, I think we
should say that there is a difference between list maintenance
and voter purging. Under the National Voter Registration Act,
election officials are allowed to remove people who have died,
who have moved from the voting rolls, but there is a process.
They must first reach out to those voters and ensure that they
are no longer in their residence, resident in their
jurisdiction before removing them. And then, two Federal
election cycles have to pass.
Ms. Norton. Well, do some of them encounter these delays
when they come to vote? In other words, if you have been
purged, you first learn about it and you have cast your vote--
--
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Right.
Ms. Norton [continuing]. It is pretty hard. You are going
to be delayed. Are you going to come back to vote? Would you
describe that kind of delay?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Yes. If the notice isn't given, then
voters are showing up to vote and then finding they are not on
the rolls. This happened in New York, for example, where voters
were removed from the voting rolls after they hadn't voted in
the past election in violation of the National Voter
Registration Act. In Georgia, in Lawrence County we had
situations where because a voter was challenged, and Hancock
County because a voter was challenged. They were removed from
the rolls in violation of the National Voter Registration Act.
So, there is a process for legitimately removing voters who
are no longer eligible to vote in a jurisdiction, but when that
is not done, that is where we see purges. And the study by the
Brennan Center for Justice has shown that these voter purges
are happening disproportionately in formerly covered
jurisdictions.
Ms. Norton. That clarification is important because purges
that result in a person having to leave the voting place and
come again, it seems to me, ought to be disallowed under our
bill, Madam Chair, so that we do not, in fact, say you got to
come to the polls two or three times in order to finally be
able to vote. So, we are looking for ways to make sure the
Voting Rights Act, in fact, is relevant to today's practices.
Ms. Nash, could I ask you to compare the kind of voting
suppression you encountered as a young person and the kind of
voting suppression that the witnesses have testified to today?
Are there any similarities?
Ms. Nash. Yes, Congresswoman----
Chairwoman Maloney. Please turn on your mic. Turn on your
mic.
Ms. Nash. OK. Yes, both voter curtailment in the Jim Crow
era and now are often based on white supremacy and
discrimination against minorities. Even back then, we were
never told directly that we are discriminating against black
people. Instead there were literacy tests. They said people who
can't pass literacy tests would not be allowed to vote, and
then went right ahead and registered white people who didn't
pass. And the literacy tests were ridiculous. Like, you would
be told to write the state constitution out from memory, and if
you left out a comma or misspelled a word, then you failed. So,
these things are not straight up. People are not honest about
it.
Poll taxes were another thing that, you know, they didn't
say we were discriminating against black people. They charged
poll taxes when black people's wages were just virtually
starvation wages. And so, that is a similarity. People are
never honest and straight up and truthful. They have these
subterfuges, and they have these complications, and I think we
should just make complicated things simple. I would like to
say----
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Ms. Nash.
Ms. Nash. All right.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. I now recognize the
gentleman from Texas, Mr. Roy, for five minutes.
Mr. Roy. I thank the chair. Thank you for holding this
hearing. I thank all the witnesses for taking your time to
being here today. I was reminded as we were talking about
Chairman Cummings, the last time I was able to talk to him at
any length, my son was here for hearing, and we talked for some
time after, and we were regaling our mutual affection for the
Baltimore Orioles. And as we head into spring training or
heading around into April, I am hopeful that the Orioles will
come out of it this year and actually have a good season, a
breakout season, in honor of the chairman. But I was thinking
about him yesterday when some of us were talking about the
Orioles.
But, you know, the issues that we are talking about here
today are of the utmost importance, right? They strike at the
core of who we are as American citizens in ensuring that all
have access to vote, all have access to take part in our
democratic republic. One thing that I would like to just make
sure to clarify for the record, because I do think it is
important, I spent a number of years as a lawyer for Senator
John Cornyn on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including the
time during 2005, 2006, 2007, or I should say 2004, 2005, 2006,
when we were debating the reauthorization of the Voting Rights
Act in 2006, which ultimately then led to the Shelby holding in
2013.
And at the time there was a great deal of debate and
discussion, and at that time I was a counsel on the
Subcommittee on the Constitution, I think, Civil Rights and
Property Rights, I think is what it was called at that time.
And what I think is important because I poured over the record
intently at the time as a staffer as all the staffers in the
room know you do. You are spending hours into the wee hours of
the morning reading records and looking at the data. And
striking at the core of what the Court found in 2013, I mean,
far from being, I think, particularly I would say for Justice
Thomas, but far from being a racially motivated decision about
voting rights, this was a decision about data. And it was data
that was being used, 1964, 1968, and 1972 data that was being
used to justify Section 5, 4(b). And this was what was found to
be problematic by the Court, I think rightfully so, because you
can't justify Section 5 preclearance in 2006 based on data from
1968, 1964, 1972.
And that is what the Court found, and I think the Court was
correct about that, and I don't think that should get lost in
this discussion because in that time we had a record, and the
record was filled with anecdotal examples of situations where
race might be a problem with respect to voting and whether
there might have been obstacles to voting around the country.
And if you looked through the anecdotal records, and I
encourage people to go through and look at the 2006 record at
the anecdotal examples, you will find them dotted all over the
country, and, in many cases, in states that were not covered by
Section 5, and they were anecdotal examples.
The point being was that the formula being used in the 2006
reauthorization was flawed, and the Court rightfully
acknowledged that Congress got it wrong by driving through a
rushed reauthorization that was based on flawed data. So, what
Congress should have done was gone through holistically looking
at the record in terms of what examples of invidious
discrimination exist and obstacles to getting to the polls that
need to be looked at appropriately scattered around the
country, not just looking at the Section 5 preclearance states,
which were defined by 1964, 1968, 1972 data, as the record
reflected at the time in 2006, and then as the justices found
in 2013 in Shelby. I think that is an important thing for us to
remember because that was the legal holding.
The only other thing that I would note is this last
weekend, my family, we are members of a large Baptist church in
downtown Austin, Texas, High Park Baptist Church. We have been
going to a different church of late, a Presbyterian church in
Southwest Austin closer to our home. And I went in there and
walked through the door, and there was a former colleague of
mine in the Attorney General's Office of the state of Texas,
David Whitley. David Whitley's name is scattered throughout a
lot of these documents because he was the former secretary of
state of Texas. David Whitley was working to try to figure out
what levels of voter fraud exists in Texas. Voter fraud exists
in Texas. It is real. The question is the number. The numbers
that were released last year, which David Whitley in the
Governor's office and others acknowledge that were wrongly put
out prematurely, those numbers were wrong, and he acknowledged
that. He lost his job for it.
I talked to him. This is a man who was walking through, and
he was with his daughter and his wife. He is real guy. He is a
nice guy. And, David, you know, felt bad that that data got
released that way. It was wrong. Later they found out that at
least a quarter of those numbers were folks that had been
naturalized citizens, then ultimately voted. There were
thousands, though, in that pool of folks that there is
indication of real voter fraud, and it is a real problem that
we are dealing with in Texas, in particular because of a very
porous border, which we have discussed at length in this
committee.
I would just ask us to remember that these are real human
beings trying to deal with real problems, as we talked about,
making sure that real human beings who should all be able to
vote, should vote, and there should be no obstacles to that.
And so, with that, I will turn it back over to the chair.
Chairwoman Maloney. I thank the gentleman. His time has
expired. The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cooper, is
recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to yield to
a statement to the Reverend Dr. Barber because he is under time
pressure. So, Dr. Barber, I would be happy to yield to you if
you are under a constraint.
Reverend Barber. Thank you so much, and thanks to this
committee, Madam Chair and Ranking Member, for allowing me to
come. I have to actually get back to an Ash Wednesday service,
but I just want to put three things to my friend, human brother
from Georgia. All of your arguments were tried in the courts,
and they did not work. The fact that you say, well, more people
voted, that also was an argument of segregationists.
Segregationists used to say, well, just because some black
people made it through the segregation, it wasn't really that
bad. None of that has ever held up in court. This argument of
voter fraud, never been brought to court because it can't be
proven in court.
You also said that voter suppression is not the real issue.
Voter fraud is the real issue. Yes, voter suppression is the
issue. In North Carolina in 2018, we had 154 fewer voting
places in the black community. In 2014, Thom Tillis won the
Senate seat by less than 50 percent of the vote, by only 40,000
votes. And a study was done by Democracy North Carolina that
said that 75,000 were suppressed. In a book called, Give Us the
Ballot, it says 250,000 votes were suppressed in Wisconsin,
even though the president claimed it was won by 30,000 votes.
We cannot just continue to take oaths in here and just lie. It
is not true. Record numbers of turnouts has more to do with
people fighting against regression than it has to do with them
not being affected by voter suppression.
And then last, I would say in North Carolina, we had a law
already if you lie and you get caught, five-year felony. There
was no voter fraud. The fraud is the claim of voter fraud as a
way of not dealing with real voter suppression. And finally, to
those who say that we needed a new formula, I don't agree with
that theory because the states never quit. They never quit. We
have to remember on the record that every state that was under
the original Voting Rights Act, all they had to do was act
right for 10 years. That is all. Stop discriminating for 10
years. Stop suppressing for 10 years. Don't pass any bills for
10 years. And Democrats in the South and Republican couldn't
resist it. Couldn't resist it. They could have all been
removed, but for 10 years.
And Republicans have now exacerbated it because they are
actually arguing in court that retrogression is legal because
the Voting Rights Act preclearance is no longer in place. We
heard that in court. Retrogression is legal. And one judge, a
white Southerner from South Carolina, asked this question, a
Federal judge from South Carolina who is white. He said, why is
it that you all don't want people to vote? And the whole
courtroom became quiet because, my friend, that is the ultimate
question. Why are we more interested in retrogression than
progression? God bless you.
Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Cooper
has remaining time.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Madam Chair. There is no more
revered name in Nashville, Tennessee than Diane Nash. Reverend
Dr. Barber referred to her as a mother of the movement. This is
a woman of undaunted courage, and she displayed more of it here
today. I thought, although all the testimony of the witnesses
was compelling, that her sentence in her testimony when she
said, and I quote, ``Black voters and many non-black voters are
in a worse place now than they were in the Voting Rights Act
was passed in 1965.'' How sad a statement is that?
I think especially young people take progress for granted,
progress as inevitable. We have heard several statements here
today about how we have gone backward instead of forwards.
Reverend Dr. Barber had mentioned that we are 2,437 days in
delaying the reforms that we need to see just to restore what
we had. He referred to James Crow, Esquire, in a suit, and then
he just had the statement that retrogression is legal. That is
a just a fancy word for going backward. So, why is this
happening to us today?
I do my best to be bipartisan, and my friends on the other
side of the aisle, this is the only type of government red tape
that they really love is when it hampers voting. Sadly, my
state of Tennessee has gotten really good at it. We just passed
last year, and I know the committee has looked at, Georgia,
Texas, and Kansas. Tennessee passed last year the first bill in
America that would make voter registration efforts criminal
when struck down by Aleta Trauger, our local Federal judge. Now
they are amending the bill to only have $50 fines per instance,
even though many of these are minor infractions, like a missing
salutation on a form or an incomplete social security number,
which most people are reluctant to hand out to a stranger
anyway. But that is just like a poll tax in advance and could
put many of these voter registration organizations out of
business, which seems to be the ultimate intent. So, that is
just one way our state of Tennessee sadly is going backward.
But the Congress of the United States, people forget, and I
wish Mr. Roy were still here because apparently he as a staffer
for Senator Cornyn forgot the key information about the renewal
of the Voting Rights Act in 2006. That vote in the U.S. Senate
was 98 to 0. There was bipartisan unanimity on that, and in the
House of Representatives it was 392 to 33. Tons of our
Republican friends were enthusiastic in renewing the Voting
Rights Act, only to be undercut by the Supreme Court.
So, I am hopeful we will pass H.R. 1. I am hopeful it will
get through the Senate because the House, of course, has
already passed it. I am hopeful for more than that because most
people don't realize there is really not an affirmative
constitutional right in our Constitution for the right to vote.
We have many Voting Rights amendments, but that is mainly to
prevent discrimination, which allows states a free reign to
reinvent Jim Crow to suppress the vote. So, I am hopeful the
Twenty-Eighth Amendment will be the Equal Rights Amendment that
our chair has championed for a long time. Wouldn't it be nice
if the Twenty-Ninth Amendment absolutely guaranteed people
right to vote? Then we could have many of the reforms that
people are talking about and that we sometimes take for granted
because it is not really written down in our own Constitution.
But if we could all just show some of the courage that
Diane Nash showed when she was, what, 21 years old, risked jail
time, went to jail while pregnant to stand up for her basic
rights. That is the sort of courage that folks in Congress need
to show. So, thank you, Ms. Nash. You are a mother of a
movement. You are an icon. All of you. Mr. Jenkins, you are
amazing, and we need to learn from your fine example. Thank
you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you for that very moving
statement. The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Massie, is now
recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Massie. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Ms. Johnson-Blanco
I think I heard you say that you were concerned that photo
identification disproportionately disenfranchises minorities
when they go to exercise their right to vote. Is that correct?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. What I stated is that in our Texas this
photo ID litigation, it showed, and the Court found, that the
photo ID law in Texas disproportionately discriminated against
minority voters.
Mr. Massie. Do you have that same concern in other states
that are trying to pass similar laws?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. States that are trying to pass voter ID
laws, they need to look at the impacts of those laws on
eligible voters. And when we do our litigation against such
laws, that is what we are looking at because any law that makes
it more difficult for eligible voters to vote is a problem.
Mr. Massie. So, some states have a photo ID requirement to
exercise your right to keep and bear arms, and some states do
not have a photo ID requirement to keep and bear arms. We know
in the states where there is no photo ID requirement, there are
more people who exercise that right to keep and bear arms. Are
you concerned that the photo ID requirement for the right to
keep and bear a firearm would also, for the same reasons,
disproportionately affect minorities?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Well, I work on voting rights. I am
not, you know, expert on the Second Amendment and the impact it
has on minority voters. What I am concerned about is that photo
ID laws that keep people from being able to vote, you know. In
our Texas photo ID litigation, we had someone who said I had to
choose between my kitchen and voting because she couldn't pay
for the underlying document needed to get her ID. That is what
I am concerned about.
Mr. Massie. But can you see how it would have the same
effect? I am not asking you to weigh in on the Second
Amendment. I am just asking do you believe that it could
possibly disenfranchise minorities in the same way that it does
when voting, as you believe it does when voting?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. I am trying to understand your
question. Are you asking me if minorities have less access to
guns because of photo IDs to bear arms?
Mr. Massie. That is correct.
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. I don't know the answer to that
question.
Mr. Massie. OK. Ms. Nash, you mentioned poll taxes and how
they would disenfranchise the poor, and maybe in some cases
minorities, I think. Is that correct?
Ms. Nash. Mainly disenfranchised blacks.
Mr. Massie. OK.
Ms. Nash. And they were poor.
Mr. Massie. So, some states require a fee to exercise a
person's Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and some
states do not require a fee for a person to exercise their
right to keep and bear arms. Washington, DC. is a jurisdiction
where you do have to pay a rather hefty fee to keep and bear
arms. Do you believe that that requirement, that monetary
requirement, could also disproportionately disenfranchise
African Americans from their right to keep and bear arms?
Ms. Nash. I don't know. I would have to take some time to
study that issue----
Mr. Massie. Can you explain why----
Ms. Nash [continuing]. And consult with people that know
about it.
Mr. Massie. Can you explain why it wouldn't it? It seems
like a pretty straight analogy.
Ms. Nash. No, I really prefer to take time to think about
things, you know. You know, I could give you a spur-of-the-
moment answer. I am not sure what that would be. But I think
that would be irresponsible of me.
Mr. Massie. Let me ask everybody here one question because
some of you have mentioned--I wish Reverend Barber was still
here--But some of you have mentioned that there are too many
barriers for people who have served a sentence in obtaining
their right to vote again after they have served their time. I
would like to ask you, Ms. Nash, do you believe that a
nonviolent felony offender who served their time should have
their right to keep and bear arms restored?
Ms. Nash. Yes, I think after a person has paid their debt
to society, that all of their rights should be restored.
Mr. Massie. Ms. Johnson-Blanco, do you believe that a
person, a nonviolent felony offender who has served their time,
should have the right to keep and bear arms restored?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. I would need to think about that. It is
not something that I have, you know, looked into, but I do
believe----
Mr. Massie. The Second Amendment is a basic constitutional
right.
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. It is a basic constitutional right, and
I believe that anyone who has served their debt to society
should have access to all available rights.
Mr. Massie. So, that would include the right to keep and
bear arms, the right to own and carry a firearm.
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Potentially. Like I said, I would need
to think more about that.
Mr. Massie. It there a reason why you wouldn't let them
have their right to keep and bear arms that is guaranteed in
the Constitution if they are a nonviolent felony offender who
has served their time?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. There is no reason that I can think of
at the moment, no.
Mr. Massie. I can't think of one either. Mr. Jenkins, would
you restore the right of a nonviolent felony offender who has
served their time to keep and bear arms?
Mr. Jenkins. If there are no other considerations that
would disqualify them, there is an absolute right for people to
have political rights. I do not see that there is an
equivalence between that and bearing of arms. I think that one
of the fundamental things that we are here to talk about is
voting rights. We shouldn't deflect. This shouldn't be a bait
and switch to have a discussion about arms when the issue is
voting rights.
Mr. Massie. Let me ask you, Mr. Jenkins----
Mr. Jenkins. We need to have an ability to do----
Mr. Massie. You sound very passionate, but you sound
unconcerned about the ability of----
[Applause.]
Mr. Massie. You sound unconcerned about these laws that, it
seems to me, that you all would agree disproportionately
disenfranchise minorities from exercising a basic
constitutional right. And just wrapping up, I know my time is
expired, I want to say that I am glad it looks like we have
unanimous agreement here. At least nobody here at least asserts
that somebody should be deprived of a constitutional right,
such as the right to keep and bear arms, after they have served
their sentence----
Mr. Jenkins. Let the record show that nobody has died
because of their being deprived of bearing their guns. What we
can have is a registering of people----
Mr. Massie. Mr. Jenkins, that is absolutely false.
Mr. Jenkins. No, it is not false.
Mr. Massie. I can give you multiple examples.
Mr. Jenkins. It is not false.
Mr. Massie. I had a staffer who worked for me whose husband
was shot in front of her----
Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired. The
witness has answered.
Mr. Massie. Madam Chairwoman, may I finish because you
indulged the other members?
Chairwoman Maloney. OK. All right. Finish.
Mr. Massie. OK. What you are saying, Mr. Jenkins, is
absolutely incorrect. I had a staffer, Nikki Gosar, who worked
for me. She watched her husband be gunned down in front of her
in a gun-free zone because her firearm, she followed the law
and left her firearm in the vehicle. So, do not tell me and do
not tell her that nobody has ever died because they were
deprived of their right to keep and bear arms.
Mr. Jenkins. Let me tell you this, that the whole business
of being able to vote is not intermeshed with the business of
bearing arms. You are taking the time that we are trying to
deal with a constitutional right to be a citizen and turning it
into something else. Use another forum. We don't have many
opportunities to get a right to vote. We don't have an
opportunity to talk about the whole business of the way in
which the Constitution has been distorted. And don't take us
off on some rabbit trail of talking about arms----
Mr. Massie. The Constitution is not a rabbit trail, and it
looks somewhat disingenuous when you are now trying to pick and
choose which constitutional rights that somebody should have--
--
Mr. Jenkins. I am trying to pick and choose the subject
matter of this hearing.
Mr. Massie. Do you understand that this is my time, and I
am concerned about this issue for minorities because we know it
to be true? Everything----
Mr. Jenkins. You are filibustering on a question that is
irrelevant----
Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Massie. I yield back.
Chairwoman Maloney. OK. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Connolly, is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chairwoman. Mr. Jenkins, you just
saw and experienced the distraction that occurs on the other
side of the aisle because they don't want to talk about voting
rights protection. If we start with the Constitution of the
United States, the first thing we should be concerned about is
protecting the sacred franchise of the right of every American
to be able to vote. Instead he wants to talk about gun control
because he is uncomfortable apparently talking about your right
and my right to vote unimpeded.
This country has experienced an epidemic of voter
suppression measures since Republicans took over state houses
and Governors' mansions all across America, strict voting ID
laws that many people, especially people of color, cannot meet
and they know it. Whimsical, capricious purges of voting rolls,
millions of fellow Americans because they missed an election.
Capriciously denying them the right to vote. Voter intimidation
tactics. Robocalls that tell people on the eve an election
their precincts have changed, or warning them that there will
be all kinds of people at the voting place to make sure no one
is committing voter fraud. That is intimidation.
Mr. Jenkins, would you agree with the proposition that what
we are talking about at most, the Brennan Center says that
voter impersonation is virtually nonexistent. Actual voter
fraud in the United States is extremely limited. But the fact
that almost 40 percent of Americans don't vote, don't vote even
in a Presidential election, I don't know, call me silly, but
that might be the bigger problem, not voter fraud, the fact
that we don't have universal voter participation, not even
close. Would you agree with that proposition?
Mr. Jenkins. I do agree with that, that is not an issue
that we need to be concerned about because the whole business
of voter fraud is itself a fraud. And the fact of the matter is
that we have adequate protections on the business of voting
rights when it comes to the question of fraudulent defenses.
What I think we need to be clear about is that when we are
trying to describe ways to address the fundamental right to
participate in this democracy, we ought not confuse that with
the side issue of something that is irrelevant to the business
of being a citizen.
Mr. Connolly. I couldn't agree more, but if you don't want
to talk about voter suppression and voter participation, you
got to distract public attention with something else. There is
a video playing right now. Chairwoman Maloney mentioned a
hearing that our late chairman, Mr. Cummings, had with Mr.
Raskin. After the 2012 election, Mr. Cummings and I had a field
hearing in my district about this. This is a precinct in Prince
William County, the second largest county in Virginia, called
River Oaks. It was at that time the only minority-majority
precinct and a very large one. And the lines snaked outside for
hours because of a breakdown in voting machines, and there were
no replacements. It just so happened this was virtually the
only precinct in the whole county where this happened. And this
is showing you the lines inside the school, but, frankly, it
took my intervention to get that to happen. Otherwise on a,
cold, cold day, all those people were outside with children
taking off from work go vote.
And it may not have been intentional. It probably wasn't.
But the fact that there was no backup, the fact that it only
happened in this precinct was something quite striking. And Mr.
Cummings and I, as I said, had a field hearing to better
understand how this happens. So, it may not be deliberate, but
its de facto voter discouragement.
Fortunately, the people in River Oaks were not going to be
discouraged in 2012. I can remember going up and down the line
outside saying, please stay, please stay, and to a person they
all went, oh, don't you worry. No one is going to take away our
vote, our right to vote. They were aware of the sacrifices you
mentioned, Mr. Jenkins, that allowed them to have this right to
vote, and they weren't about to let it slip away because of a
lack of voting machines, adequate voting machines.
So, I just want to say, I want to thank all of you for
being here. This is a sacred topic. It is a passion for most of
us up here, and we can't allow ourselves to be distracted by
other topics. Voter suppression is wrong. Anything that impedes
the ability of people to vote or discourages them directly or
indirectly, subtly or explicitly, is wrong, and we have to
fight it wherever we face it. Too many people, as you remind
us, Mr. Jenkins, sacrificed a lot for that right to be
reasserted, for us to finally honor the Fifteenth Amendment,
and we are going to continue that fight until we prevail.
And I am very proud of the fact that as the new majority in
Richmond, the state capital of Virginia, we have rolled back
voter suppression measures. We have made it easier for people
to vote early, taking away the requirement for some kind of
excuse, and we are going to continue to do that in our state,
and I hope it will be a national movement. Thank you, Madam
Chairman.
[Applause.]
Chairwoman Maloney. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman
yields back, and I would now recognize the Congressman from
Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, for five minutes.
Mr. Grothman. First of all, I'd like to submit into the
record, I am told the Heritage Foundation has 1,085 examples of
a voter fraud. One of the witnesses, I think, said
inappropriately that it is something that that doesn't happen.
As a downpayment, we have got about 40 here in Wisconsin, and
they are running off the other 1,000 or so.
Chairwoman Maloney. Without objection.
Mr. Grothman. We will put that wherever we put them. OK.
Thank you very much. The second thing, it is to me obvious the
reason why we have photo ID, and I sponsored a bill, and I
voted for photo ID in Wisconsin, and that is because we want to
avoid fraud, OK? There is a concern that people are going to
say they are somebody who is on the voter rolls when they
aren't, and without the photo ID, you are not going to be able
to know whether it is that person or not. I know somebody--I
haven't confirmed it--who claims that her mother, who is
deceased, turned up as having voted in the city of Milwaukee.
So, this is why we need it, for obvious reasons.
I have got a couple general questions. There are many
things in society that you have to do that are arguably more
important, at least on a personal level, than voting. Maybe you
need prescription drugs that may need to save your life. Some
states, welfare benefits. Going on an airplane, you know, you
can go on an airplane on a very, very important trip. All these
things you need photo ID, and I can imagine if you didn't have
your ID, the inability to take an airplane, the inability to
take prescription drugs, inability to buy a gun, the inability
to get welfare benefits, would really shake up your life. But
for some reason, we never hear of people complaining about
that.
You know, I flew out last night, had to show my ID. You
know, it would have been a real mess for me if I didn't have an
ID, but nobody ever screams on these other issues. I wondered
why the advocates who make such a big deal here, and, of
course, as somebody who advocates for photo ID and wonder about
people who want people to vote without it, are encouraging
cheating, why on these other things like prescription drugs or
some public benefits, we aren't screaming you shouldn't have a
photo ID?
Mr. Jenkins. Well, I think the reason is that we are
intelligent enough to be able to focus on what the issue is at
hand.
Mr. Grothman. No, no----
Mr. Jenkins. We are not dealing with prescription drugs. We
are not dealing----
Mr. Grothman. Well, you are not answering my question.
Mr. Jenkins [continuing]. With a lot of irrelevant uses of
photo IDs. We are dealing with the right of people to vote, and
that is what we ought to address. Don't take us off on some
other track talking about other things----
Mr. Grothman. Well, would you----
Mr. Jenkins [continuing]. That have nothing to do with
voting.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Well, I will give you another question.
There are there are many other countries--Mexico to our South,
just looking on the internet, assuming I can trust the
internet--other countries in which you refer to people of
color--Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Mozambique, Botswana,
Madagascar, Zambia--just a tip of the iceberg on the number of
countries that have photo ID. Why do you think all these other
countries all around the world feel that photo ID is important?
Mr. Jenkins. You have despotic countries all around the
world who want to repress their people by any means possible.
Mr. Grothman. So, you consider Mexico a despotic country.
You consider Costa Rica----
Mr. Jenkins. They will use all kinds of techniques. What we
are----
Mr. Grothman. France, Germany.
Mr. Jenkins [continuing]. Dealing with here not the
discouragement of other countries against democratic
principles. It is our country that has our Constitution. It is
our country that said we the people are supposed to be able to
exercise the vote.
Mr. Grothman. I mean, what you are doing, and this is what
offends me about this, you are charging people who want photo
ID because we want to make sure that people, you know, who are
voting are who they say they are. You are claiming racism. And
the point I am trying to make out to you is that there are so
many countries around the world, including countries that are
nowhere near as multiracial as our country, and they all
require photo ID.
I don't think when Costa Rica or Mexico or Brazil require
photo ID, I don't think it is out of despotism. I think it is
out of the reason that I say. It is that they don't want people
voting, claiming they are somebody who they are not, that sort
of thing, and it is very inflammatory to say it is for any
other reason. Now, these dozens of other countries around the
world that require photo ID, I would think it is for the same
reason that I am for it. I don't want people cheating. Do you
have any evidence that there is any other reason for all these
other countries around the world having photo ID?
Mr. Jenkins. They are not democracies that are parallel to
ours. They do not have a Constitution of the United States like
ours. They do not have a system that guarantees these rights.
Mr. Grothman. Ms. Nash, do you have a response?
Mr. Jenkins. You are trying to introduce irrelevancies
about Costa Rica, Mexico, and other places that have no bearing
on the United States Constitution and the way in which people
should be guaranteed the right to participate in their
government.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
Mr. Raskin.
[Presiding.] Thank you. The gentleman yields back. I will
take my five minutes now. First, I want to thank the whole
panel for coming and testifying and giving us your insight and
perspectives. You connect us to a noble and honorable moment in
American history, and so we thank you for your hard work and
the sacrifices that you have made.
Ms. Johnson-Blanco, I want to start with you. Mr. Cooper
invoked the strange absence of a universal affirmative
constitutional right to vote in the U.S. Constitution. We, of
course, have a sequence of ad hoc anti-discrimination
amendments that were extracted through the blood, sweat, and
tears of social movements. So, the Fifteenth Amendment said no
race discrimination in voting. The Nineteenth Amendment said no
discrimination based on sex in voting. The Twenty-Third
Amendment gave people in D.C. the right to participate in
Presidential elections. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment said no
poll taxes. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment lowered the voting age
to 18. But nowhere do we get what you find in most of the other
constitutions in the world, which is a universal command of
everybody having the right to vote and participate at every
level of government, like if you look at the new South Africa
Constitution.
That is why we are in the business of fighting to
reconstruct a Voting Rights Act that was dismembered by a five-
justice conservative majority, treating the Congress of the
United States like an administrative law tribunal, like some
kind of administrative commission, demanding to see what our
evidence is for exercising our powers. But my question for you
is, is a constitutional amendment for the right to vote on the
agenda of the civil rights today?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. It is something that the civil rights
community is looking at because we are very concerned that a
lot of the restrictions that are being imposed are being
imposed because there isn't an affirmative right to vote in the
Constitution. We do, however, acknowledge that through our
recognized right to vote through the jurisprudence of the
Supreme Court in looking at the Fifteenth Amendment and the
Voting Rights Act, but there is a----
Mr. Raskin. At least up until Shelby County v. Holder,
where the Supreme Court, you know, started to exercise strict
scrutiny of congressional efforts to enforce the right to vote,
but I appreciate that, and I look forward to working with you.
Mr. Jenkins and Ms. Nash, let me turn to you for a second. Both
of you invoked your late colleagues and friends, Schwerner,
Chaney, and Goodman, and others who lost their lives fighting
against political white supremacy in the South, Viola Liuzzo,
Medgar Evers, many other people who were gunned down fighting
for the right of people to vote. And I wonder, looking at the
struggles today against the massive voter purges which have
included millions of people since 2016, looking at the efforts
to vindicate the right to vote against this constant undertow
of efforts to shut down polling places and make it more
difficult to vote, what do you think about the sacrifice of the
people that you worked with back in the Civil Rights Movement?
What do you say to their families today because I don't know
how many people would actually give their lives in this cause?
And what do you say to their family and friends, and what do we
owe them? Ms. Nash?
Ms. Nash. I think that people today don't realize how
patriotic black people who fought for the right to vote were
back in in the early 60's. Just quickly, I would like to
mention that people who lived on plantations and had 15, 16
children would go down to the courthouse to try to register to
vote, and someone at the courthouse would call back to the
plantation and say, your Willie or your Mary is down here
trying to vote. And by the time Mary or Willie got back to the
plantation, they wouldn't have a job and they wouldn't have a
place to stay with their huge family. And they kept doing that,
and they knew that that was going to happen because it had
happened so many times before, but they did it for the
collective benefit.
I would have trouble talking to their descendants today
after those kinds of sacrifices were made. I think present-day
Americans owe them to reestablish the democratic right to vote.
The right to vote is the basic unit of democracy, and one
person-one vote, if we don't have that, I think we as a
republic are in serious trouble.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. And, Mr. Jenkins, do you have any
reflections on that?
Mr. Jenkins. I think that the fundamental of the right to
vote is the warp and woof of having a democracy. The reason
this country claims to be a democracy is because it allows
everybody to participate in the way in which the public policy
of the country is being directed. And people need to understand
that that right is inherent in them being a human being and
being part of the politics and the body politic of the United
States. And one of the things that worries me most is that some
young people, who are so discouraged by the way in which the
suppression of political participation is going on, that they
have given up and walked off.
I think it is fundamental that we recognize not just the
handful of names that we know, but many hundreds of names that
we do not know. Remember that when they went to look for the
bodies of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, they found hundreds
and thousands of skeletons of unnamed people who had died. How
many of them were victims of an undemocratic system? I think
one of the things we have to remember is that fundamentally, we
as a country have failed to live up to the ideals that we
talked about when it comes to practice.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much. The gentleman from North
Dakota, Mr. Armstrong, is now recognized for his five minutes.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. North Dakota is the
only state without voter registration. We are pretty proud of
that. It is very unique, but yet we somehow end up in these
conversations once in a while. We had a law that was challenged
on voter ID in 2012. It went through the courts, and as
recently as three weeks ago, there has been a settlement
reached between the lawyers representing the Native American
tribes in the state of North Dakota. Now, I don't pretend to
know the particular and unique circumstances of every other
district, but I do know that if you would read the majority
staff memo regarding North Dakota, which states, ``North Dakota
passed a law that required identification with a voter's
current residential street address in order to vote, a
requirement that excluded Native American communities on
reservations that often do not have street addresses. The law
affected tens of thousands of Native American Americans in
North Dakota in an election year in which Kevin Cramer won that
won the race by 35,344 votes.''
That statement is misleading at its most charitable
interpretation. What it doesn't say is that in the prior Senate
race, the Democratic candidate won by less than 3,000 votes. It
doesn't say that in the 2018 race, that that vote margin was
just under 10 percent of the entire vote total. But probably,
more importantly, what it doesn't take into account at all,
either through complete lack of diligence or intentional
omission, is that Native-American turnout was the highest it
had ever been in the last 14 years in North Dakota.
The Turtle Mountain have easily suppressed our voting
numbers from state and Federal elections the last four years,
and the polls are still open. The Turtle Mountain Band of
Chippewa Chairman, Jamie Azure: ``Rowlett County reported the
Turtle Mountain reservation reported 5,102 votes on Tuesday,
the highest number in at least 14 years, including Presidential
elections. More than 1,400 people voted in Sioux County, which
is completely within the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, an
increase of more than 200 voters from the 2016 Presidential
election.'' To imply that a voter suppression law, which, by
the way, a court found valid, was the reason that our senator
won the election is either intentionally not doing the research
on what went on in North Dakota, or intentionally placing
things in the record that make it seem more severe than it is,
and it is not true.
We are glad we have reached a settlement. We are glad to be
the only state in the country without voter registration. Even
in North Dakota and even on Native-American reservations, we
are proud of the fact that we have the easiest access to the
ballot of any state. So, it gets to be a little concerning for
me when I see those things about something I know specifically
about, that I lived through, that I was a part of, being
portrayed in a way that is simply not accurate. And with that I
yield back.
Chairwoman Maloney. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the gentlewoman from Michigan, Ms. Tlaib, for
five minutes.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much for being here. I cannot
express to you, Mr. Jenkins, how much the spirit of late
chairman, our forever chairman, Congressman Elijah Cummings'
spirit in being effective and efficient. I think you have
helped make sure that happens as the line of questions come
toward you. In the spirit of what Mother Nash has said is how
do we uncomplicate something that should just be pretty simple,
and I think you have been reiterating the importance of we are
a democracy, it is in the Constitution. and so forth.
Just so it is simple for folks to know, I mean, the right
to vote is guaranteed by the Constitution. Congress has clear
authority, clear authority, to investigate, any level of
government, to try to push back on any infringement on that
right. So, in spirit of simplifying this, as Mother Nash has
asked us to do, you know, what do you think these folks, which
I will call oppressors, what do you think these folks are
really truly afraid of? Let's just talk about it. I think it
needs to be out in the open. Why are they so afraid of us,
people like us, voting? Mr. Jenkins?
Mr. Jenkins. I think basically it is a reflection on the
history of America. As I pointed out in my remarks, when they
talked about ``we the people of the United States,'' and then
excluded women and excluded indigenous populations, excluded
poor people, they were making a definition of democracy that
was only for themselves. And one of the things that I think we
have to raise over and over again is that many of the
institutions that were created under that mentality are
affecting us in a disadvantaged way today. I mentioned the
Electoral College. The Electoral College is a barb on the whole
face of democracy in the United States because what it says is
that people's real estate is more important than their lives.
Ms. Tlaib. Yes, that is right.
Mr. Jenkins. And it is to imbalance the whole system so
that people who come from states with a handful of population
have the same votes as people who come from states that have
millions of people. That is a perversion of democracy. And I
noted that after the remarks that were made about the Electoral
College, not one question was raised about the Electoral
College, the defense of it or a criticism of it. But that is
fundamental, and we have got to be able to deal with basic
issues, not superficial issues.
Ms. Tlaib. I got it.
Mr. Jenkins. Chasing rabbits is not what the Congress
should be doing.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you. What are they afraid of? OK. They are
afraid. They don't want us to dismantle the Electoral College
basically, you know, protected landowners, protected that kind
of classism that was going on in that form of repression. But
your opinion from the work that you have been doing and looking
at all of this form of oppression and making sure that it is
harder for folks that look like us to vote.
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. So, what I would say and what I have
seen in my work is that, you know, as Mr. Jenkins alluded to,
our democracy was not founded with the idea that all eligible
voters would have access to the polls. And what we are seeing
now is that their attempts, as the Voting Rights Act gives life
to the Fifteenth Amendment and broadens to those who are
allowed to vote, we are seeing both the challenge of our
democracy not having or making the resources available to
ensure when there is robust turnout, that everyone has access
to the ballot. And then we were also seeing laws that are being
passed that affect certain types of voters.
And, you know, there has been this argument that there has
been robust turnout, but its robust turnout in spite of. We saw
the video of the long lines. That is a lot of burden on voters
to have to take to have their voice heard. No voter should have
to wait in hours' long lines in order to have their voice
heard. And even if there is, you know, robust turnout, there
are those individual voters, the voters that I care about, who
are not having the opportunity to vote when they try to engage
in the franchise. And those are the voters that laws like the
Voting Rights Act wants to protect.
Ms. Tlaib. I only have a few seconds. Mother Nash, I don't
want you to get cutoff, so I would love to hear about this. I
mean, you know, having Election Day be a national holiday, I
think, it is an important conversation. Getting rid of the
Electoral College is an important conversation. Talking about
no-reason absentees so we don't see these long lines is an
important conversation. It should be easy to be able to vote
here as an American citizen. But with last words of wisdom to
all of us and really getting back to the simplifying, what are
they afraid of? Why don't they want us to vote?
Ms. Nash. Congresswoman Tlaib, I think we have to realize
that this country was founded on genocide against Native
Americans, and then slavery was an extremely fundamental
institution in our history. The country has never confronted
those facts directly and officially recognize those as at least
mistakes, and done what is possible to do to make restitution.
I think that as a result, white supremacy is still very much
with this society. I think we look on the value of lives of
Europeans and white Americans, and Australians, and maybe
Israelis as much more valuable than the lives of people who are
Asian, African, and Latin American.
We have to confront that directly I think. I think more
particularly, common, ordinary citizens who are white need to
confront racist white people. There is a fantasy on the part of
many whites where they, you know, think of themselves as
Scarlett O'Haras, you know, wealthy white plantation owners
that subjects people of color. The President of the United
States recently, while saying he welcomed people from Norway,
that he mentioned immigrants from colored countries as s-hole
countries. And, you know, we have to, I think, confront this
kind of attitude across the board definitely.
And I think that in the South, particularly during the
Civil Rights Movement, white people were afraid that if we got
power, we would do them like they had done us, and there was a
lot of fear around that. Well, that didn't happen. But there is
something to karma, that people know when they have mistreated
people over a period of time, then they become afraid of them
if they have equal power. I think there is a real emotional
illness around race in this country.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. The gentlewoman's time has
expired. The chair now recognizes Mr. Armstrong for a unanimous
consent request.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to
unanimous request to enter two articles into the record. One is
from the Dickinson Press saying, ``Voter Turnout High Across
North Dakota, November 7, 2018.'' The second one is from the
Bismarck Tribune that says, ``North Dakota Reservations See
Record Voter Turnout Amid Fears of Suppression,'' which is also
November 7, 2018.''
Chairwoman Maloney. Without objection.
Chairwoman Maloney. And without objection, the following
report from the Brennan Center for Justice will be placed into
the hearing record. This report addresses claims that the
Heritage Foundation document contains almost 1,100 proven
instances of voter fraud are grossly exaggerated and devoid of
context. Without objection, placed into the record.
Chairwoman Maloney. The chair now recognizes the gentleman
from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, for five minutes.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank
you to the panelists today for your powerful testimony. As I am
sure you know, the first piece of legislation that the
Democratic Caucus brought to the floor of the House in 2019 was
H.R. 1, the For the People Act, which was a broad anti-
corruption and clean elections bill that addressed many things,
including voter access. Subsequent to that, we brought H.R. 4
to restore the Voting Rights Act. That was passed. Last week, I
think, or maybe the week prior, we brought Congresswoman
Norton's H.R. 51 into this committee, passed out of committee,
which would provide statehood for the District of Columbia and
redress this centuries-old wrong. So, we are moving on our side
of the aisle and on this side of the Capitol to try to deal
with the issue of voter access.
One of the key elements among many that was contained in
H.R. 1, and many of these are things that Congressman Lewis had
worked on for years in legislation, it was incorporated into
the broad package, was automatic voter registration. And Ms.
Johnson-Blanco, do you believe that congressional action to
require automatic voter registration across the country
nationwide would help Americans exercise that right to vote?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Yes, I do. Far too often, we are seeing
that there are challenges to access to voter registration. The
Lawyers' Committee convenes the Election Protection Coalition,
and we have an 866-OUR-VOTE hotline, and we have calls into the
hotline when people aren't even aware that they need to
register to vote. So, having the opportunity that allows them
to automatically register to vote would definitely advance
participation in our democracy.
Mr. Sarbanes. There are sort of two sides to this
conversation clearly. There is this whole issue around the
renewed, I think, renewed connivances, might have been the
phrase that you used, Mr. Jenkins. So, all of these things to
play mischief with the franchise in terms of new voter
suppression techniques: making people jump through hoops,
hiding it through kind of process-based rigmarole when we
really know what the intent is behind it. And so, having very
specific provisions of law that can address voter suppression,
in other words, address the kind of negative things that are
being done out there when it comes to voter access.
But at the same time, on the other side of the ledger, we
want to plus up, reinforce, and establish things that can
improve and enhance access and the franchise in this country.
So, automatic voter registration is certainly an example. That
was contained in H.R. 1. The bill also requires same-day voter
registration so that eligible voters can register and vote on
Election Day if they are not registered by that point in time.
Again, Ms. Johnson-Blanco, can you speak to national same-day
voter registration and how that might benefit some of the work
to actually combat the voter disenfranchisement?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Yes, I definitely support all
legislation that improves access to voter registration,
including same-day voter registration. We want to ensure that
voters, when they show up to vote, they can do so, and very
often we have found, because either that they have been wrongly
purged or they weren't aware that they needed to re-register,
that they show up and find that they can. So, being able to
register in real time will definitely improve access to the
ballot.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you. If we can change what is now
really an obstacle course for people getting to the ballot box,
to really put access on a glide path by offering these
different opportunities, and those include as well increased
online voter registration, expanding early and absentee voting,
requiring that states at least offer the opportunity for voting
by mail. In other words, we should be exploring every possible
opportunity to make it easier for people to register and to
vote in this country.
Last question. I invite anybody to speak to it if they
would like. Another provision in H.R. 1 would require the re-
enfranchisement of all persons convicted of a felony upon
completion of their prison sentences. That was something very,
very important, nationwide restoration of voting rights for
those who have paid their dues and serve their time. Could you
speak to what you think the impact--anybody, I would invite--of
having that provision now become part of law?
Mr. Jenkins. Well, I think it is important to appreciate
that one of the phenomena of the American experience has been
the criminalization of race, and the fact that people are often
convicted for various things because of their racial
orientation. The whole manner in which law enforcement has been
racialized has assured more arrests of black people than of
white people. And when you have something that piggybacks on
that discrepancy by having the franchise tied up with the right
to vote, you are multiplying the effect of racism. And I think
it is important for us to disaggregate the whole question of
criminal behavior from the question of racial identity, and
until we do that, we will not have a solution of our Democratic
issues.
Mr. Sarbanes. Outstanding. Thank you very much for your
testimony. I yield back.
Chairwoman Maloney. The chair recognizes the gentlewoman
from New York. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is recognized for five
minutes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank
you to all of our witnesses here today testifying on such a
profoundly important issue. I think that one of the largest
threats that we face in our country today is the unmitigated
assault on our democracy, and that starts with the assault on
particularly African American and black voters in our country.
Last year, this committee launched investigations into
state actions that limit the ability of Americans to vote,
including in the state of Georgia. Now, I want to talk about
Georgia. The Georgia Secretary of state reportedly purged more
than half a million voters from the rolls, blocked thousands of
new registrations, and closed polling places, all while he was
a candidate for Governor. The documents that this committee
received confirmed many of those efforts. And, for example, in
September 2017, the press reported that efforts to challenge
voter registrations ``may have violated Federal law.'' In fact,
Mr. Kemp, that candidate, responded to this by congratulating
his campaign team, writing, ``good work.'' This story is so
complex, folks will not make it all the way through it.
Ms. Johnson, Blanco, your organization has been active in
Georgia. What is your view of the voter roll purges in that
state?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Yes, we have been very active in
Georgia. Georgia keeps us very busy in fighting back against
voting discrimination. And to answer your question that one of
the things that Georgia did that I think speaks to the impact
of the purges or related to it, is that with the exact match
law that Georgia had, it points to something that the Supreme
Court, when it found the Voting Rights Act constitutional,
pointed to, which is the repeated efforts at suppression.
The exact match law was first a procedure by the Secretary
of State, and when we won the litigation against that, the
legislature passed into law, and then we had to bring two more
lawsuits to fight against it. And now we have a third lawsuit
because the exact match law still applies to those who are
naturalized citizens. So, they are not only aggressively
removing voters from the rolls, but also preventing voters from
getting on the rolls.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So, I am curious. What do you think of a
top election officer in the state of Georgia congratulating his
team over these reports?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. You know, I am speechless, right,
because, I mean, that is one of the things that we confront
when those who are charged with carrying out our voting laws
are also running for office and abusing that. That is a
problem.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So, it is out in the open what we have
here. In fact, it is so out in the open that this committee's
investigation also shows that as Georgia Secretary of State,
Mr. Kemp, he with the White House and the Kansas Secretary of
State, Kris Kobach, with noted ties to white supremacist
organizations and individuals, financial ties and
organizational ties, they served together to produce and
promote the President's failed Voter Fraud Commission. So,
let's talk about this voter fraud, the President's allegation
that there is mass fraud in the United States. They put
together a commission, and it was forced to disband because
they had so little evidence. Their own commission had to be
disbanded. So, Ms. Johnson-Blanco, what is the connection
between the false claims of voter fraud pushed by this
Administration and his allies, and the voter suppression
efforts in Georgia and elsewhere that you have observed?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. I think the false narrative of voter
fraud is used to pass laws, in effect, that keep eligible
voters from being able to vote, and these laws
disproportionately impact minority voters. Courts time and time
again, in striking down the laws, show that they
disproportionately impact minority voters. And, in fact, the
Fourth Circuit, in striking down North Carolina's voter ID law,
we all know that it said it was targeted with surgical
precision at minority voters. But the Court also said it
imposes cures for problems that don't exist.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And if I may, how are all of these
efforts that we are seeing today any different from what we
fought against in the Civil Rights Movement several decades
ago?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. I think we are seeing an updated
version of what we fought against. One of the things that was
really striking for me when I was working on the record that
did show voter discrimination when the Congress reauthorized
the Voting Rights Act, is the focus on the implementation. We
had a commissioner the National Commission on the Voting Rights
Act, who was a Congressman from Alabama, who had to take a
literacy test. His literacy test was who was the first
president of the United States. That was not the same test that
was applied to African Americans, as you heard Ms. Nash say.
And so, we have laws that are seemingly neutral on their face,
but in their implementation, the courts have shown again and
again, including the Wisconsin voter ID law, that they
disproportionately impact minority voters.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you very much.
Chairwoman Maloney. The gentlelady yields back, and,
without objection, the statement of our colleague and leader
and conscience on these issues, John Lewis, from the great
state of Georgia, will be inserted into the record.
Chairwoman Maloney. We now recognize the gentlelady from
Massachusetts, Ms. Pressley, for five minutes. Thank you.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for
convening this timely and incredibly important hearing. I had a
written statement, but, to be frank, I am still seething from
some of what occurred in this chamber a moment ago. And I guess
it is impossible anymore to be disappointed when you are no
longer surprised.
I, you know, serve in this august institution and this
committee with colleagues across the aisle who deny science and
the climate crisis, who believe that because we have had a
black president, we live in a post-racial America, who think
that being poor is a character flaw, who believe that we still
live, or we ever did, in a meritocracy, who espouse the
redemption of Christ's love and grace, but only believe in
second chances for a selective few. So, I should not be
surprised that they think we are being dramatist about voter
suppression. Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they
do. I just wanted to say thank you. You know, to have the honor
to serve in Congress with your fellow freedom rider, John
Lewis, and I wonder if some of the comments that were said here
today, my colleagues would ever say directly to John Lewis, who
they consider to be a national treasure. But I digress.
Let's get to the matter at hand here. I just know that I am
46 years old. I have been doing movement-building work since I
was 10 years old. My mother was a tenants' rights organizer in
Chicago. Harold Washington's campaign was the first one I
worked on. I would not be here as the first person of color and
black woman to represent Massachusetts in the House of
Representatives. That took 230 years. And I know I owe a debt
to each of you, that I can say that. So, I just want to say
thank you, and I apologize and completely disassociate myself
from the comments that were said earlier by my colleague across
the aisle.
What I want to talk about is mass incarceration. Certainly,
our mass incarceration crisis has further exacerbated many of
the challenges that we have already enumerated here today, and
these issues are intrinsically linked. Millions of individuals
across the Nation have been arbitrarily and permanently
stripped of their right to vote due to involvement in the
criminal injustice system. These policies disproportionately
impact black and brown communities. In fact, 1 in 13 black
Americans of voting age are disenfranchised on the account of
this broken system, and they continue to have their bodies
where they are being warehoused, counted, and included in this
Census for the suburban communities for which they are usually
housed. But that is a conversation or debate for another day as
well.
We have seen some states moving forward with re-
enfranchising individuals who were formerly incarcerated. Ms.
Johnson-Blanco, you point out the importance of the passage of
the Amendment 4 in Florida, which would re-enfranchise 1.4
million people, but now we see these newly restored rights in
Florida under attack. How do these court fee requirements
compare to the poll taxes that emerged in some states during
the Jim Crow era?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. I think it is comparable. The Eleventh
Circuit, which recently ruled against the fines and fees
provision that the legislature imposed to those who have their
rights restored under Amendment 4, noted that the fines and
fees law places those returning citizens who can pay at an
advantage over those returning citizens who can't pay. So, what
the new law is saying is that in order for you to have your
rights fully restored, you have to be able to pay to have a
fundamental right that 65 percent of your fellow citizens said
that you were entitled to.
Ms. Pressley. OK. And so, for the purposes of the record,
what should formerly incarcerated individuals do to ensure they
can exercise their newly restored rights since last year alone
Kentucky restored voting rights to 140,000 people, and
Louisiana restored the right to roughly 36,000 individuals? So,
for the record, what should they do?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. They should make sure they vote, they
register and vote, and take advantage of these new laws, these
new rights that have been afforded to them.
Ms. Pressley. All right. Very good. I also just wanted to
ask the question. I just want to make a point. In 2018 in
Georgia, seven polling locations were suddenly closed by
Republican lawmakers before the midterm election. They cited
the ADA intended to protect the Nation's disabled communities
as a pretext to disenfranchise minority voters. Had the U.S.
Supreme Court not gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the
closures would most likely have been blocked by the DOJ, but
without oversight from the Department of Justice, Republican
lawmakers acted nefariously. So, we reject false choices that
purport that access to the polls must be bartered between
vulnerable and disenfranchised folks. And with the balance of
my time, I just urge my colleagues to pick their heads up and
to defend access to the ballot for everyone. And, again, I
thank each of you freedom riders.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much, and I now recognize
the gentlelady from New Mexico, Ms. Haaland. She is recognized
for five minutes.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Nash, Mr. Jenkins,
Ms. Johnson-Blanco, and Reverend Dr. Barber, who is no longer
here, thank you for your wisdom and truth, for being here, and
for your dedication to fighting this extremely important issue.
Over the past decade, many states have decreased people's
access to voting by closing and moving polling places. Last
September, a report from the Leadership Conference found that
southern states have closed more than 1,000 polling sites since
the Supreme Court's ruling in Shelby County v. Holder removed
preclearance requirements from states that have historically
disenfranchised black voters. And you can see it up on the
screen. This is a map from the Leadership Conference report.
And I notice down there Alaska, which has a large number of
native folks living there, so we have also been
disenfranchised.
Since that Court ruling, Texas has closed 750 polls,
Arizona 320, Georgia 214. Many of these closed polling sites
are in minority neighborhoods. Ms. Johnson-Blanco, have you
seen an increase in the closing of polls in historically
disenfranchised communities since the Shelby County decision?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. We have indeed, and we have been
working with our partners on the ground to, as much as we can,
replace Section 5 in getting notice of when these polling
places are expected to be closed, and have very effectively
worked with communities on the ground to show the impact that
it would have on them if the polling places were closed, and
not just closed, but also moved. We had a situation in Macon-
Bibb County, Georgia where the plan was to move a polling place
in an African American community to the Sheriff's office,
despite the community's objections. And it is only after
successfully petitioning against that that they were able to
stop that move to the Sheriff's office. So, what we are finding
is that without Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, communities
have to be extra vigilant to push back against these closures
and their impact.
Ms. Haaland. I think you have already talked a little bit
about this, but what is the impact of these efforts on
communities of color?
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. So, communities of color are now
finding that they have to do extra work to fight back against
those who wish to suppress their votes, and this is not a
burden that should be on those communities. Jurisdictions,
particularly those with a history of discrimination in voting,
should have to show the impact of laws or actions, like moving
polling places, before they can be allowed to do.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you. States have also restricted access
to polls through onerous ID requirements and by limiting early
voting in certain locations. For example, North Dakota passed a
law in 2018 that required identification with a voter's current
residential street address in order to vote, a requirement that
excluded Native American communities on reservations that often
do not have street addresses because they don't necessarily
need them. Were it not for tribal leaders in those areas who
act fast and work extremely hard to enfranchise voters in these
native communities, Ruth Anna Buffalo, a Native-American woman
from the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Tribe, may not have been
elected, thereby defeating the man who penned that oppressive
bill. So, sometimes democracy still does work in spite of the
efforts that people go through to make it not work.
Also in 2018, Florida tried to prevent public universities
from hosting early voting facilities. Early voting at Texas
State University in San Marcos was limited to three days while
most other areas of state had two weeks. And, Ms. Nash, thank
you so much for your passionate testimony earlier. I am very
grateful to have you here. I wanted to ask you, why is early
voting so important in protecting people's right to vote,
especially in communities of color?
Ms. Nash. I am not an expert on what is happening right now
with the voting, but I understand that there is heavier voting
in communities of color during the early voting process. So,
that that is a good thing.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair, I yield
back my time.
Chairwoman Maloney. The gentlelady yields back. Thank you.
The gentleman from Missouri, Congressman Clay, is recognized
for five minutes.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank all of you all
for being here today. The Brennan Center found that 16 million
voters were purged between the Federal elections of 2014 and
2016. That is almost 4 million more names that were purged from
the rolls than between 2006 and 2008. Post-Shelby, it is
notable that the higher purge rates ticked up in the parts of
the country that have a demonstrated, documented history of
discrimination in voting. Our ancestors knew the value and
power of the ballot box, even if it was a life-or-death
endeavor. The suppression efforts of the past were steeped in
violence and intimidation, a shameful part of our Nation's
history.
Let me talk briefly about my state's history, Missouri. The
day I first got elected to Congress in the 2010 general
election, I was in court that day challenging what was then
known as an inactive voter list. We forced the court to keep
the polls open an additional three hours that day so that
people who were standing in line could still get in to vote.
And then, of course, the first press conference the day after,
my Republican U.S. senator called the FBI on me to investigate,
and, sure enough, the results came back that the Missouri
Secretary of State was involved in a violation of the Voting
Rights Act. So, that was the result, and then we made them
change the whole way they purged voters so that they wouldn't
violate people's voting rights.
Let me ask you, starting with Mr. Jenkins. That was the
initial occurrence of how we suppress votes in this country,
and I guess in the 21st century. That was the Bush v. Gore
election. But it was a national strategy on the part of my
friends on the other side of the aisle to suppress communities
of colors' votes. We know that since 2000, it has picked up.
So, Mr. Jenkins, tell me what you think is the best way to
combat these initiatives like in Georgia, what happened to
Stacey Abrams where they first violated the rights of those
people attempting to register to vote, and then they couldn't
get to court fast enough to stop the purging. What are your
recommendations on what we should do to combat this egregious
behavior?
Mr. Jenkins. One of the things we need to be mindful of is
the connection between the economic consequences of any changes
in voting laws that have the effect of making it more
expensive, costly, or impossible for people to meet those new
requirements. It is important for us to connect the business of
fines, the business of requirements for photos, and all of
these businesses, the things that require transportation to
remote places, all have racial consequences, and it needs to be
sophisticated in our opposition to those things.
And one of the things that I think is critical is to have
in our educational system the whole business of civics again so
people are aware of the connection between voting and their
rights. It is very alarming to note that in many, many, many
states, the whole business of civic education has now been
eliminated from the curriculum, so people do not learn when
they are in grammar school and junior high and high school the
connection between political exercise, and the control of
government, and the control of their own lives. I think it is
important for us to have alternatives that come from beyond
just the governmental sources.
One of the places that I have had some impact on is in this
thing called Teaching for Change, which has been aimed at
public school teachers to get them to understand that they can
be a voice in their classroom to have people understand their
civic rights.
Mr. Clay. I appreciate your response. Can they answer?
Chairwoman Maloney. The witness may answer. This is a
historic hearing on a historically important, major, major
issue for all Americans. Ms. Nash. Who did you want to comment?
Mr. Clay. Ms. Blanco and Ms. Nash just very briefly. My
time has run out, and my friend from Maryland hasn't given me
his five minutes yet, but go ahead.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Johnson-Blanco. Yes, I think we need to keep up the
drumbeat of what is in H.R. 1. It is fantastic that it has
passed this body. It needs to become law. And one of the things
unfortunately that we have had to do as civil rights groups in
the face of the voter purges is now mount campaigns urging
voters to check their voter registration before going to the
polls, and to make sure that they are registered. We have also
had to bring litigation against voters improperly placed on
inactive voter rolls. So, it is a multi-pronged strategy that
we need to engage here.
Mr. Clay. Thank you. Ms. Nash, very quickly.
Ms. Nash. Well, I think the suggestions of Mr. Jenkins and
Ms. Johnson-Blanco are certainly important, and I agree with
those. And I would just add, I know that it is necessary to
counter and to address these issues, like the fraud and voting
and purging, and what have you. But I would caution against
allowing our ourselves to be limited by the agenda that the
opposition resents. I said earlier they give you a hamster
wheel to run over, and, you know, give you a problem, and you
can spend years satisfying that problem. I am saying you need
to address those problems, but also don't be limited to them.
Really look at what needs to be done and address all of them.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Ms. Nash. I am particularly worried about the 2020 election
in November, and actually that is one of the things that is the
issue of this particular hearing, and, you know, measures that
are necessary in order to make that a real election and a fair
one, and with the Senate not considering the important bills
that this this body has passed. I don't want you to let them do
that.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Ms. Nash. If anyone is interested, I would be happy to
share some of our tactics with this----
Mr. Clay. And I thank you for your response.
Ms. Nash. Some of our tactics with the Civil Rights----
Mr. Clay. I sure would like you to share. Thank you, and I
yield back. I am sorry.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much. I want to thank all
of my colleagues for being here. I believe this is a
historically important hearing. I am humbled to have so many
incredible leaders from the Civil Rights Movement, and that
includes our friend and colleague, Eleanor Holmes Norton. But
Mother Nash, you are a heroine to many, many people in our
country. I wanted to share with you that not only have we
passed important legislation on voting rights, but we passed a
bill to create the first and only women's museum in the country
dedicated to the contributions, meaningful contributions, of
women like yourself, so that our young girls and boys can learn
and be inspired by your work. I am honored to have you here in
our in our room.
And thank you so much, Ms. Johnson. You are making history
right now with your important court decisions. You have
mentioned many of them today in your testimony, and, Mr.
Jenkins, your historic and current leadership. I am going to
put in a bill based on what you said today. Civics is being
removed from the curriculum of our public schools. That is
wrong. Everyone should study the struggles that we went through
to win the right to vote and the civic responsibility that we
all have to vote.
And I want to return to what I said in my opening remarks,
which we heard again so powerfully from our witnesses. And that
is that history is repeating itself, and in more sophisticated,
complicated, and more difficult challenges with the Citizens
United decision, and with the voter suppression tactics that we
are hearing that have been updated for today, and that some
states still are trying to put new barriers to voting. And
though the House passed critical legislation, I want to point
out that Leader Mitch McConnell has not even allowed a debate
on these important bills on voter rights, much less a vote. And
we as Americans need to get ready and ensure that we can
protect and exercise our right to vote in 2020.
And I want to close in remembering our dear friend, our
dear colleague, Elijah Cummings, and this was the main vision
of his mother and of his life's work. We are continuing with
these hearings in his honor. And I am inviting all of our
colleagues to come back to this room at four o'clock tomorrow
because we are going to be naming the first hearing room after
a Member of Congress in history, in Black History Month. There
is not one room or facility in the capital named for an African
American Congress member. We are changing that tomorrow with
his family. I hope everyone comes back to share this important
event and honor his memory as we do with this hearing today.
Again, I am honored to have all of our witnesses. You of
all the done such an incredible job with your life's work and
with your testimony today. Thank you. And I now recognize,
representing the minority, Mr. Grothman.
Mr. Grothman. Well, thank you for letting us do all the
talking. I feel like going on for about a half an hour, but I
know there are so many people back home listening to this
hearing, and they want a break. So, we will just let you
adjourn.
Chairwoman Maloney. OK. Without objection, all members will
have five legislative days within which to submit additional
written questions for the witnesses to the chair, which will be
forwarded to all of the witnesses for their response. I ask our
witnesses to please respond as promptly as you can.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:57 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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