Chris Van Hollen
Senator for Maryland · Democratic · United States
“Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026)] [Senate] [Page S4105] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] TRIBUTE TO COLONEL YOLANDA D. GORE Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr.”
“Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026)] [Senate] [Page S4105] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] TRIBUTE TO COLONEL YOLANDA D. GORE Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr.”
“She brought modernization to Fort Meade and the surrounding community by implementing a barracks renovation project, helping break ground on a child development center, and reforming physical security across the installation.”
“She brought modernization to Fort Meade and the surrounding community by implementing a barracks renovation project, helping break ground on a child development center, and reforming physical security across the installation.”
“She earned a bachelor's degree in family and consumer science business and later went on to earn a master of arts in leadership and management from Webster University and a master of arts in strategic studies from the Army War College.”
“She earned a bachelor's degree in family and consumer science business and later went on to earn a master of arts in leadership and management from Webster University and a master of arts in strategic studies from the Army War College.”
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“In Colorado, we are the first State in America to complete a risk-limiting audit, the gold standard for verifying the integrity of election results to begin with, and it entails counting and comparing a representative sample of ballots to the reported result. To prevent hacking, none of our voting machines are attached to the internet. We require county clerks to use two-factor authentication to access voter databases. And once a vote is cast, a bipartisan team of election judges in each county checks every signature against the copy in the database for any discrepancies. All election officials and judges with access to the tabulation process must pass a Colorado Bureau of Investigation background check.”
“Compare those 30,000 Kansans who attempted to register and were denied to the 30 people--30 people--the 30 noncitizens who reportedly voted in the 2016 election nationwide. That is about 0.0001 percent of all votes cast. If there ever was one, this is a solution in search of a problem, and the only solution doesn't even work. It only makes it harder for law- abiding Americans to register to vote or patriotic Americans to register to vote. Perhaps it would be better if this bill were modeled after the system that we have in Colorado. We have set the gold standard in my State. It is a system that actually encourages people to vote in a fraud-free system.”
“The SAVE Act does nothing to make it easier to cast a ballot; it only succeeds in making it harder for Americans to register to vote and to exercise their rights. This is not theoretical. Kansas tried to implement its own State- level SAVE Act in 2013, with disastrous results. The law blocked over 30,000 potential registrants in just 2 years--about 12 percent of all voter registrations during the period. State officials acknowledged in court that over 99 percent of affected voters were U.S. citizens. Now, even Kansas's Republican secretary of state, who championed the bill when he was a State legislator, has warned against it, saying: It didn't work out so well. I would say so. About 12 percent of the people who tried to register couldn't.”
“In other words, government issued driver's licenses and military and Tribal identifications would not satisfy the bill's requirements. The SAVE Act would severely restrict online voter registration and mail-in registration and eliminate voter registration drives altogether. It would make it harder or even impossible for up to 69 million married American women who have changed their names, because their last name doesn't match the one on their birth certificate. Meanwhile, half of Americans don't even have a passport. How are they going to register under this law? They can't. Over 60 million Americans who live in rural areas--now they are going to have to drive miles and miles and miles, hours out of their way, to stand in line at a local election agency.”
“President, I, too, am here on the floor today to oppose the SAVE Act. Today, Americans register to vote in a variety of ways, typically set by each State in this country, but Federal law requires that Americans attest to citizenship under penalty of perjury. In Colorado, you can register online; you can register in person; you can register through the mail. It can be as easy as providing your Social Security number and signature, which every American has, through the secretary of state's website. Alternatively, the SAVE Act would change that by requiring that all American citizens, whether registering for the first time or updating their registration, to present proof of citizenship in person, largely in the form of a passport or a birth certificate.”
“If you are one of the 69 million Americans who changed your name after you got married and your certificates don't [[Page S2701]] match your current name or if you have currently moved recently and changed addresses, Republicans want to make it harder for you to vote. It is one unnecessary hurdle after another. We know the SAVE Act is not about securing our elections. It is about suppressing voters. It is about making it harder to vote and easier to cheat. It is despicable. It is damaging--beyond damaging. It goes against the very foundations of our democracy. Democrats will never, never allow the SAVE Act to become law. I once again thank my colleague from Rhode Island for sponsoring this act. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado. Mr. BENNET. Mr.”
“Every single State already prohibits noncitizens from voting in State elections. So Republicans are trying to strip our democracy down to its studs, all to fix a problem that doesn't exist. Under the SAVE Act, if you want to register to vote or if you want to simply update your registration, it would be harder than it is right now because on top of your ID card, you will need to provide either your passport, birth certificate, or citizenship certificate. So if you are one of the 50 percent of Americans without a passport or one of the 21 million American citizens who don't have access to your birth or citizenship certificate, Republicans wants to make it harder--not easier, harder--for you to vote.”
“Democrats and Americans see this bill for what it is--a nasty, vicious attack on our democracy. The SAVE Act reads more like a how-to guide for voter suppression rather than a serious attempt to secure our elections. The SAVE Act would make easy methods of voter registration--like online registration, registration by mail, and registration drives--a thing of the past. Massive purges would inevitably remove many American citizens from the voter rolls, and it is already wholly unnecessary. Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in Federal elections. It is done with one purpose in mind: voter suppression. What they have in mind is they think those that vote Democratic are less likely to vote than Republicans if this passes. It is trying to slant the elections away from free and fair.”
“On the one side, Donald Trump recently issued an Executive order that would coerce States to prevent millions of Americans from voting. On the other, Republicans in Congress are pushing the SAVE Act--one of the most destructive, dangerous voter-suppression bills in recent memory. It is very reminiscent of Jim Crow. That is what Republicans want to do--they want to not only restore Jim Crow in the South; they want to have Jim Crow spread from one end of this country to the other. It will not happen. It will not happen. Let me be clear. I will not let this noxious bill, the SAVE Act, become law. Every Senate Democrat, every single one of us, is united against it. They need 60 votes. The SAVE Act is dead on arrival. I would like to say it louder so my friends in the House and the rightwing over here can hear: The SAVE Act is dead on arrival.”
“Well, we know that free and fair elections are the very wellspring of American democracy. When you ask people around the world ``What is great about America?'' this is one of the first things they say: ``They have elections, real elections, free elections.'' But unfortunately--deeply unfortunately--no administration has come closer to destroying that wellspring than the Trump administration. Donald Trump and Republicans are putting our elections in a vice grip-- Executive orders from the President on one end and dangerous legislation from Congress on the other. They don't understand the sacredness of elections and keeping them fair. The kind of legislation, the kind of Executive orders which are so jaundiced, so slanted on the side of one party, are the antithesis of democracy.”
“We have heard the testimony--so many us--of those who were threatened, of those who were told--election workers just doing their jobs--that their head would be on a stake. Mr. President, Congressman Lewis never stopped working for our democracy. While we are seeing daily assaults on our democracy, it is our duty to never give up hope and to continue to fight for what Congressman Lewis aptly called ``one of the most important blessings of our democracy,'' and that is our Nation's right to vote. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York. Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first, I want to thank Senators Padilla and Reed for holding the floor on such a vital issue to our country, our democracy, and who we are as a people. I thank Senators Klobuchar and Bennet for participating as well and all the others who did as well.”
“After the election in 2016, after that election, he declared it safe. The Attorney General for the United States at the time for Donald Trump, Bill Barr, echoed his words and said it was safe. Then the President just decided at the time--President Donald Trump, in his first term--to fire Chris Krebs. But that wasn't even enough for this President. He comes back just a few weeks ago and says he is going to investigate Chris Krebs. Why? Because this civil servant had the audacity to declare our election safe and correct, which it was, after spending his time in government working to make sure that it was and that Russians and other countries that wanted to do us harm would not influence our election. We also should be able to stand by our election workers, including volunteers, who face a barrage of threats and intimidation.”
“That is why I also strongly support the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore and strengthen key portions of the Voting Rights Act. But there are things that all of us should be able to agree on, like ensuring that State and local governments have reliable Federal support and funding to maintain election infrastructure--something that Senator Blunt and I, when he was chair of the Rules Committee and when he was ranking on the Rules Committee, agreed on, and I know Senator Padilla is carrying on that torch; that we must, in our local election offices, keep pace with new technology; that we must combat cyber security threats. I think about Chris Krebs, someone who I respect very much, who was in charge of the Division of the government that makes sure elections are protected from cyber attacks.”
“I heard Senator Merkley discussing the problems with this bill. It would make it harder for men and women in uniform serving overseas to vote, and it would compromise--this Executive order--sensitive, personal data, giving Elon Musk access to private information about citizens, contained in voter files in every State. Instead of creating barriers to the ballot box, we should be protecting access to the polls. That is why we intend to reintroduce a bill that I led, the Freedom to Vote Act--something that we negotiated over months and months and months. This legislation would set national standards to ensure that all eligible Americans can vote in the way that works best for them, regardless of their ZIP Code.”
“Then there were the people in camo standing to intimidate voters in lines in Arizona. The stories go on and on. In Harris County in Texas, they had one voting dropoff box in a county the size of my entire State when it comes to population. So, no, I don't think it is just fine. It is not just at the Department of Justice that we see an assault on voting. President Trump also issued an Executive order to overhaul our Nation's elections. As a Federal judge recently made clear, the President has claimed power over our elections that the Constitution does not give him. If implemented, the order could disenfranchise millions of citizens, including millions of women who changed their last names after getting married, as would the legislation that my colleagues have just highlighted.”
“The people who have endured voter discrimination don't think it is fine. Those of us who have been active in this area, who have heard the stories, as I did when I was Rules chair and held a field hearing in Georgia--the story of the veteran who had signed up to serve and there was no waiting line, and when he comes home to this country and he wants to vote, he finds out that there is a waiting line in the hot Sun for hours; he finds out that his vote in one location, which he figures out, for the primary is different from where he votes in the general and then is different from where he votes in the runoff. That is a system designed to make it harder to vote. In the election for Senator Warnock, suddenly they took down Saturday voting when there are only a few weekends between the general election and the runoff.”
“She didn't answer the question. It is clear why she didn't answer--because she never planned on enforcing it. In fact, it has been reported that the Department's lawyers in the voting rights section have been directed to dismiss active voting cases. But they are not stopping--this administration--at forcing attorneys to dismiss cases. Justice Department officials have also removed all of the senior civil servants--civil servants--in the Civil Rights Division. That has had a ripple effect, as you can imagine, causing a mass exodus of experienced attorneys from the Division. And rather than try to stop the loss of talent, [[Page S2700]] the current head of that Division, installed by the Trump administration, simply told reporters: I think that's fine. Well, I don't think that is fine.”
“In 2023 alone, over 19 States enacted laws to restrict access to voting and to make it more difficult to vote. In the words of Senator Warnock, what is happening is simple: Some people don't want some people to vote. Yet what are the words that are inscribed at the Justice Department over its entrance? Equal Justice for All. Department of Justice officials would like us to believe that the fight for equal rights and the fight for voting rights is already over. In fact, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights has said that the Voting Rights Act ``was once necessary to push back on Jim Crow laws.'' At her hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee, I asked her if she will enforce section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which the Supreme Court of the United States, a conservative Supreme Court, just reaffirmed 2 years ago.”
“But in one of President Trump's first acts, he pardoned the violent offenders who had struck police officers, who had injured over 100 police officers. That is what he did. And from that January 6 insurrection to dangerous rhetoric and baseless election conspiracies, to other actions taken by this administration over the past 100 days, we have seen unprecedented attacks on the freedom to vote and our democracy. Nowhere are these attacks more clear than at the Department of Justice. The Justice Department was founded in 1870 with the very purpose to enforce civil rights. This includes voting rights guaranteed by the 15th Amendment. And since the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Division has been responsible for enforcing that law. Today, the work to protect voting rights is as urgent as ever.”
“It secures all of our freedoms. As Congressman John Lewis once said, voting is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect Union. But in recent years, from the January 6 insurrection--I just came from a spotlight hearing in which Officer Dunn and in which former prosecutors were speaking out about their work on that day. I remember that day because, at 3:30 in the morning, it was Senator Blunt and Vice President Pence and I that were here on our own in this very Chamber and made that walk, which in the morning had been a big celebration of our democracy; but this time we were walking over broken glass, we were walking by marble pillars spray-painted with racist vulgarities. But we made that walk, and our democracy prevailed.”
“But we have worked steadily toward that vision, that ideal that every citizen should have that full opportunity to participate in the direction of their Nation. So should the SAVE Act ever be brought to this floor, which itself would be a massive corruption of our responsibility as U.S. Senators, I am voting hell no, and everyone else should as well. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in standing up for the right to vote and the critical need to ensure that that right is protected. I want to thank Ranking Members Padilla and Reed for their leadership on this issue and in organizing this floor block. Senator Padilla, a former Secretary of State himself, understands to a core how important the right to vote is. The right to vote is sacred to our democracy.”
“We know what it is about. It is about manipulating the vote on election day to stop people from voting, and we are not going to let that happen. In another case, the Brennan Center examined, in 2016, the behavior of 23 million voters, and they found it was roughly equal to the risk of being struck by lightning that a noncitizen would vote. And we know that in some cases where those have happened--I mean, it is so rare--it has happened because the bureaucracy screwed up and sent them a ballot when they weren't supposed to. So let's be clear. Our journey toward the vision of citizen empowerment in voting has been imperfect. It has been long. It has been slow. It has seen setbacks like after the collapse of reconstruction.”
“More than half of Americans today who don't have a passport--my mother would have been in that category. She wouldn't have been able to register to vote. Let's not go backward into the realm of voter suppression. Let's go forward into full voter empowerment. If you believe in this Constitution, then honor it; don't put it in the wood chipper. Folks today are able to register in a variety of ways. Some say: Well, isn't this opening the possibility that noncitizens are voting? The answer is no. That is not happening. The Secretary of State of Georgia, in 2022, led a massive examination of the history of voting in Georgia, and the Secretary of State says he could not find a single noncitizen that had cast a ballot in Georgia in 25 years. So don't tell me that your so-called reform is about integrity at the ballot place.”
“What a name--the SAVE Act--as if it is saving something important as opposed to destroying the opportunity to vote. So we will absolutely not let our colleagues across the aisle take us backwards to voter suppression. Under the SAVE Act rules, my mother would likely not have been able to vote. The most common documents to prove citizenship are a birth certificate or a passport. And when my mother married my father, she changed her last name from Collins to Merkley. My mother never had a passport. She couldn't have used a passport. Her name was different than that on her birth certificate. Betty Lou Collins became Betty Lou Merkley. And Republicans want to stop women across the country from voting once again because their name doesn't match their birth certificate. That is pretty extraordinary.”
“Blue States, red States are saying this makes sense because it ends the corruption on election day where officials stop people from voting by relocating the voting booths to a new location, by putting equipment in there that malfunctions, by understaffing it, by putting out false information about where the voting will be held. Vote-by-mail ended all of that corruption on election day, utilized so often to stop people from voting who lived in the inner city, who lived in poorer communities, who lived in communities of color--a modern-day version of the suppression that followed the collapse of reconstruction. We stopped it, and blue and red States have adopted those reforms. But the SAVE Act is about going the other direction.”
“But we remedied that situation. We took it on. It took a long time, unfortunately. In the 1960s, Members of this Chamber and Members of the Chamber down the hall said we are ready to end that discrimination that we knew all along was wrong, those barriers erected for citizens to vote. But now we have one party, the Republican Party, which was founded on the vision of ending slavery, that wants to suppress the vote of Americans once again. That is incredible. But we are going to stop that bill. My own State has pioneered the ability to vote by mail, and that provision has spread across the country to States like Utah, a red State.”
“But we have worked toward that lofty vision that we knew was right. We remedied slavery, ending it in 1865 with the 13th Amendment. We passed the 15th Amendment to ensure the right to vote shall not be denied by race or color or previous servitude. And [[Page S2699]] then, some 50 years later--it took 50 additional years before the right to vote was guaranteed to women in the United States of America. After the Civil War, reconstruction collapsed in about 1877. There was kind of an evil deal that was worked out all over the election of Rutherford Hayes. And that ended reconstruction; and, quickly, a series of measures were passed by States to suppress the opportunity of Black Americans to vote in the South. These included poll taxes; they included literacy tests; they included civics exams--rigged so that only White Americans could pass.”
“But perhaps nothing encapsulates the opportunity of a citizen to participate in the direction of their own country more than the ballot box, more than the right and opportunity to vote. Yet that sacred opportunity at the heart of our Constitution is under assault because there seems to be one party that has decided it is about suppressing citizens' rights rather than empowering and honoring citizens' opportunity to participate in our government. And they have this bill that is all about voter suppression. Well, we have gone through some serious voter suppression. Some of it was written into our original Constitution. Despite the lofty goals, we didn't allow people of color to vote; we didn't allow women to vote; we didn't allow Native Americans to vote; we didn't allow the enslaved to vote.”
“I hear again and again and again from my constituents in Connecticut about their concern that the right to vote may be restricted. I say to the people of Connecticut right here and now: I will fight this bill because it is wrong, because it eviscerates voting rights, and because it threatens our democracy. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schmitt). The Senator from Oregon. Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, our Constitution starts out with the three words ``We the People,'' and they are written in supersize font to tell you that that is what the core of our democracy is all about-- or, as Lincoln so well summarized, government of, by, and for the people. There are several things essential to make this happen: the freedom of speech, for one; the freedom of assembly, for another.”
“To solve the delusional nonproblem, the SAVE Act would deprive real citizens of the real right to vote--21 million of them. Married women, younger voters, voters of color--they are the ones who are going to be impacted. I don't know how they would vote in Connecticut or elsewhere, but they have a right to vote, and we should not be fooled by this wolf in sheep's clothing, a measure that masquerades as preserving democracy. We should not let our voter rolls be purged by a measure that has false pretenses. We must protect the right of every eligible citizen to vote. The best way to do it is to say no to this bill, and I ask my Republican colleagues to join me in saying no because this issue is larger than any one of us.”
“That is what we have in the SAVE Act, an effort to erect obstacles and to require documentation that, very simply, Americans-- many of them--don't have. This measure is a solution--supposed solution--in search of a problem. There is no widespread voter fraud. Undocumented people, noncitizens, almost never try to vote. And I am using the word ``almost'' because I am tempted to say ``never.'' But, of course, you can't rule out a negative. You can't prove it. But the fact of the matter is, widespread voter fraud, even significant voter fraud by noncitizens, is an imaginary, delusional issue. Some 21 million U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote don't have the requisite documentation that would be required under the SAVE Act.”
“I can remember, always--and I see it again and again and again--new citizens walking out of the courtroom after the naturalization ceremony, with their certificates of citizenship in their hands and handing it to the League of Women Voters person who is doing voter registrations. It is the thrill of their lifetime to be registered. Of all the rights we have, voting is perhaps the most meaningful and the most practiced. It is foundational to all the others. It is the way we preserve the others. And that is why the fight for voting rights-- and blood has been spilled in the effort to secure it--is a storied bedrock of our American history. And, now, again--as there has been throughout our history--there are efforts to suppress that right for political reasons, for political gain.”
“Our Civil Rights Division within the Department of Justice has a revered history for standing up for the rights of all citizens and their constitutional rights to be enforced and protected, and that brazen attack on the Civil Rights Division will leave it totally unable--as the President, apparently, prefers--to defend the democratic right of our citizens to vote. I urge my colleagues to oppose the President's Executive order. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut. Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, of all the thrills of living in a democracy, none is more meaningful than walking into a voting booth and casting a ballot. I can remember the first time I did it when I came of age.”
“According to press reports, all career supervisors in the voting rights section have been reassigned to other positions completely outside their areas of expertise. In other words, it is about destroying the Civil Rights Division. The Assistant Attorney General, Harmeet Dhillon, surely, at the direction of the White House, is punishing career attorneys. This is outrageous. Also, reportedly, political appointees at the Department of Justice have ordered the dismissal of all active cases and the closing of all active investigations by this section.”
“I ask my colleagues to join me in focusing our attention on the very real problems that confront our Nation and are pushing back against the Trump administration's usurpation of the Senate's constitutional prerogatives. President Trump is attacking the right to vote with respect to dismantling of the Department of Justice organization of attorneys who are being punished for their efforts to protect that right to a vote. That organization within the Justice Department is being actively dismantled. And the President has currently used the Department of Justice as a tool to enact his--my view--very extreme policy positions, and that includes the Civil Rights Division at the Department whose mission includes protecting the right to vote.”
“The order of the President also raises significant constitutional issues. The Constitution entrusts our States--and in the case of certain core rules of conduct, Congress--with the authority to regulate elections, not the Executive. The Executive order President Trump has signed flips that framework and purports to vest the President with expansive new powers that he does not have--not just him but any chief executive. It attempts to enact through Executive fiat what the Trump administration seemingly believes it cannot achieve through the legislative process, through an act of Congress; namely, Senate consideration of the SAVE Act, many provisions of which are contained in the President's Executive order.”
“Also, Federal law already bars noncitizens from voting in congressional and Presidential elections. So this is not a question of whether there is some backdoor effort on the part of one party to allow noncitizens to vote. It can't be done. It is illegal now. This Executive order would not change that. Study after study has also shown that the rate of noncitizen voting is incredibly small, almost too small to measure--roughly 0.0001 percent, according to a reliable estimate. Obviously, that error is so small that it is hard to measure and would not have any material impact on our elections. If you don't believe me, ask folks over at the libertarian Cato Institute, a very conservative organization. They have labeled President Trump's claims about noncitizen voting as ``bogus''--their word, not mine.”
“I say that--usually, these are not partisan issues on voting, but it is turning into that. And we are seeing a one-sided, one-party approach, particularly out of the House, that goes to the [[Page S2698]] heart of our electoral process and the right of each of our citizens to make their decision and their vote be the one that counts. At the same time, despite the political violence at home and rising tensions abroad, the Trump administration has taken an ax to CISA. As we know, that is the Agency that works to curb emerging cyber security threats. And that threat, those threats, are a threat to the election integrity that is so essential to the well-being of our democracy. The Executive order makes an assumption that noncitizen voting is a problem. The assertion that noncitizens are voting is alarming. Fortunately, it is not true.”
“I want to stand here in solidarity with my colleagues to push back, oppose, denounce President Trump's March 25 Executive order, which claims to preserve the integrity of U.S. elections. It does no such thing. And, by the way, the idea that the President, who spent years denying the outcome of the election he lost gives him absolutely no credibility when he is speaking about his commitment to free and fair elections. Like my colleagues--all of us--I am committed to safeguarding the security of our elections and working with anyone and everyone in the Chamber to advance that objective. All of us revere the right of citizens to make the decision about who their leaders are. Unfortunately, many of our colleagues in the House, Republicans in the House, have fought to gut the election security grants our States depend on.”
“We will stand strong against the rising tide of attacks on our democracy. And I will keep leading the fight to stop this cynical and dangerous bill and to stop Trump and Republicans' attempts to undermine our voting rights. I yield the floor to my next colleague. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont. Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, first of all, I want to thank the senior Senator from California not just for his leadership on protecting the voting rights of all citizens in this country but for his work as the California Secretary of State, where he gained a nationwide reputation for running free and fair elections. Senator Padilla, thank you so much for your work there, and thank you so much for your leadership here.”
“They will have some explaining to do and hurdles to jump over simply to register to vote. These are just two small examples that impact millions and millions of Americans, should the SAVE Act pass. And if you make it harder to register, guess what, you have made it harder for eligible citizens to vote. That would be the result of the SAVE Act. Here in the Senate, I want people to know that together with my Senate Democratic colleagues, I will do whatever it takes to kill this bill, to stop it from passing, to keep it even from coming up, if we can, because we owe it to our constituents to fight every Executive order that undermines our democracy and to keep demanding answers on the firing of Federal workers entrusted with safeguarding our elections. So over the course of the next hour, Senate Democrats will lay down a marker.”
“I can tell you this, in case you didn't know already: It is already a crime for noncitizens to vote in our elections. To propose it as a new law is misleading. It is already against the law. And, by the way, it is also extremely, extremely rare. But if our Republican colleagues were to have their way, American citizens--American citizens--would feel the impacts of the SAVE Act, from the Active-Duty servicemember who has to move for a new deployment and has to work so much harder than they should have to, to update their registration with the new address at the local elections office, which could be hours and hours from the base where they are assigned, to think of a married woman who chose to change her last name when she got married, and now the name listed on the birth certificate and the name on their ID no longer match.”
“Any day now here in the Senate, we could see Republicans take up the SAVE Act--the measure that recently passed the House of Representatives, a bill that, I should say, scapegoats immigrants simply to justify new barriers to voter registration. Not only is that wrong, it is un-American. And, again, it is based on a lie. I bring to this body my 6 years of experience administering elections not just in any State but the most populous State in the Nation, with the largest number and the most diverse number of voters in the Nation. I understand the complexities of both keeping our elections free and fair but also secure. And I am happy to take time to meet with any of you to walk you through the security measures that are in place to ensure the integrity of our elections.”
“He was so offended by the power grab that he responded to the White House's request with ``Go jump in the Gulf of Mexico,'' saying, ``Mississippi is a great state to launch from.'' Good for him. So you can imagine my disappointment when, fast-forward to this past March, Trump announced yet another anti-voter Executive order that would empower DOGE to access sensitive voter data--very reminiscent of the request from that first term but now on steroids. And what did so many of our Republican colleagues here in the Senate and the House of Representatives say? Nothing. But it is not just that the Republicans have gone silent, they have actually become Trump's enablers here in Congress by forgoing their responsibility to serve as a check and balance on the executive branch.”
“The commission set out to collect sensitive, private voter information from every State, demanding that States hand over not just the names of every voter on the voter rolls but their dates of birth, their voting history, their Social Security information, and more. It was a blatant power grab, long before Elon Musk started tapping into Federal servers, by the way. It was a blatant power grab which was responded to: 44 States, both Republican and Democratic, said no. Republican and Democratic elections officials throughout the country joined together to reject Donald Trump's demands under his first term. Even in Mississippi--hardly a woke, Democratic bastion, folks--even in Mississippi, then-Secretary of State and now-Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann, a Republican, was outraged.”
“What I do know is that, by failing to counter, by failing to elevate the truth, Republicans in Congress have become complicit as they just sit back instead of pushing back. Believe it or not, there was a time, not that long ago, when even Republicans had the moral courage to speak out against Trump's attacks on our democracy. I do think back a few years to my days as the California secretary of state when, during the first Trump administration, he created a commission to investigate these unfounded claims of ``voter fraud''-- without evidence, baseless claims--but for him, it was important enough to set up a commission to investigate and uncover the truth.”
“There was no stolen election. That is a farce. But for those selfless election workers, Donald Trump hasn't even tried to lower the temperature of political rhetoric or combat the disinformation that leads to the threats and harassment. Instead, he has, actually, actively made it worse for those who are administering elections. Think of the election workers and all of the volunteers who work polling places to help our elections in our democracy thrive. He has made it worse for voters. He has fired Federal workers who combat election misinformation and disinformation. Why would he and his administration and Republicans in Congress who support him want to make it easier for people to interfere with our elections? I am at a loss. I am at a loss for an answer.”
“In Rochester Hills, MI, Republican clerk Tina Barton worked hard to help administer and uphold a free and fair election in 2020. But for her dedication and hard work and professionalism, 1 week after the 2020 election, Tina received an anonymous phone call--not a phone call thanking her for her service but a phone call threatening her life. The voice on the other end threatened to come after her family, to hold a knife to her throat, and to kill her. As shocking as threats like that may be, Tina represents just one-- one in every three election workers who has reported receiving threats, harassment, and abuse. So, for Tina and so many others, that harassment grew worse with every lie spread by the Trump campaign about a so- called stolen election, with threats against election officials continuing in subsequent elections.”
“In State legislatures, in the Capitol, and in the Oval Office, radical Republicans are working hard--actively working hard--to make it harder for eligible Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote. We see it in the endless lies and conspiracy theories about massive voter fraud. We see it in the new barriers being erected that would make it harder for eligible Americans to simply register to vote. And we see it in the Trump administration's firing of the hard-working and dedicated security officials who are tasked with protecting our elections. So, yes, over the next hour, with my Democratic colleagues, we will peel [[Page S2697]] back the curtain on the tactics being used to undermine our Federal elections, because our fundamental democracy is at stake.”
“I currently serve as the ranking member of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. I also, as many of you know, am the former secretary of state for the State of California. So I have seen firsthand, not just through the last 4 years but for the last 8, 9 years, the growing threats to our democracy and the threats to the public confidence in our elections. Sadly, the truth in the year 2025 is that it is not just foreign actors who are trying to undermine our elections and the people's confidence in the elections. It is also so many Republican officials here at home, not just in the Capitol but in statehouses across America--but, yes, even here in the Capitol. I think of the old horror movie where the person on the phone would say that the call is coming from inside the house.”