'In This Letter, I'll Read It': Lankford Points To Letter Signed By Harris Supporting Filibuster

senator from oklahoma under president we're in the same spot in the senate we've been at five times before in the past 12 months my senate colleagues are bringing up a bill on voting to federalize our elections this time is different this time their demands have changed it's not just vote for my bill or take a vote it is if you don't do this we will blow up the senate permanently oh that's a different thing so let me set some context on this because this requires some conversation about where we are what this conversation is all about and what this really means for the future so first let me begin with the bill itself there's no question 100 senators here have all been through an election process we're all experts on elections we've walked through it in a way that most americans have never walked through before we're passionate about fair elections we're passionate about the people who actually vote because those are the people that are actually engaged in our society as we have millions of people that check out don't care don't vote we encourage people to vote to pay attention the laws in our states are a little bit different on voting because each state is a little bit different that's not something new that's actually written into the united states constitution it's been that way since 1789. they've always been a little bit different in 1965 our nation took a strong bold step to be able to make sure that we protected the rights of every single individual to be able to vote because there was a season in american history where black americans were being pushed out there were poll taxes there were jim crow laws there were things that actually pushed people away from voting so in 1965 our nation passed the voting rights act i'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment that voting rights act still stands today to be able to protect the right of every individual in america to vote if a single person or group of people are suppressed in their voting are prohibited from voting federal courts today have the right to be able to step in on any jurisdiction any state in america to be able to protect the rights of individuals to be able to vote i bring that to this body as a reminder because for some reason an enormous portion of this body on the left side of this room are running around the nation and saying if we don't do something right now there'll be voter suppression in america and we have to change that when they all know in 1965 we passed the voting rights act and that act still stands today to be able to protect the rights of individuals i hear people wander around the nation and get on news channels and say the voting rights act has been kicked out by the supreme court when they know that is a lie they know it is one section of the voting rights act the supreme court took out several years ago it was the section that required what's called pre-clearance it created a formula for states that had done a lot of oppression against black americans it created a certain formula for them if they made any changes in their voting laws they had to get pre-clearance for that it stayed in place for decades even though their state had cleaned up their voting laws and had changed for decades it stayed there until the supreme court looked at it and said you can't hold this over these states a generation later for something that a previous generation did and so the supreme court kicked that one section out but kept everything else including protecting the rights of every single american from voter suppression every law in every state in america could be challenged in a federal district court circuit court into the supreme court to make sure the rights of individuals are protected now people here may not know that that still exists based on the way that the news is talked about voting of late and based on all the conversation about voting but that is the law of the land right now so what's being brought to this body to vote on then well here's what's been brought to this body to be able to vote on a long list of things that they want to be able to address and to be able to say they want to change voting in america to be able to remake it in their image except it's not in the image of their states because many of my democrat colleagues don't actually have in their own state the things that they're actually putting into this federal legislation meaning literally they're taking over from officials in their own state telling their own governor their own legislature that they're wrong and that they're going to set them straight we have a disagreement on some of these issues i'll grant that some of the areas in their bill we look at and go let's talk about most of the areas in their bill we look at and go are you kidding me we just disagree on this things like same-day voter registration where a person could literally walk in say i've never registered to vote before tell them their name and then vote on the spot honestly i have a problem with that because there's no way to be able to validate that they didn't vote in oklahoma city then go vote in tulsa and then go vote in muskogee oklahoma there's no way to know they just voted and they did same-day registration and so there's no way to verify that person's actually really even that person interestingly enough they also include in their bill undermining state voter id laws so the combination of the two is pretty powerful you can't call for id but you can register on the spot that is a formula for fraud it's not just my opinion it's the state of new york's opinion the state of new york does not have same-day voter registration in fact this last november it was on the ballot in the state of new york and the people of the state of new york overwhelmingly said that's a terrible idea and voted it down yet senator schumer stands right over there and tells every state including his that just voted this down no you have to do this we're going to require it because some people in this body think it should be required we have a disagreement on that that's a real disagreement we should be able to debate and talk about but instead my democrat colleagues are saying if you disagree with me on this i will blow up the rules of the senate and will get what i want no matter what can we not have a disagreement that same-day voter registration may be a bad idea when even the state of new york and the people of new york think it's a bad idea they have a mandate for using ballot drop boxes now i don't have a problem with ballot drop boxes but their ballot dropbox issue is you can't provide security you can't if you have any kind of security setting for it or any kind of chain of custody requirement then that's going to be oppressive and suppressive you know i think it's a good idea if you're dealing with a ballot that you actually know where it went and if anyone changed it if people dropped off multiple ballots when it's only legal to be able to drop off one i think that may be important to be able to know if you're going to be able to verify an election we have a disagreement on that we have a disagreement on the issue of felons voting now each state makes that decision where they're going to allow felons to vote but in this piece of legislation democrats are bringing they're saying no felons have to be given the right to vote when they get out of prison now i understand we may disagree on that but i want you to understand what they're saying my democrat colleagues are saying i will blow up the rules of the senate and change 250 years of history in the senate to get my way if you don't allow rapists convicted murderers and convicted sex offenders to be able to vote they are so determined that sex offenders get the right to vote they're willing to blow up the rules of the senate to get it can we not have a disagreement on if we're going to force states to mandate that convicted murderers sex offenders and rapists get to vote again in this piece of legislation they provide government funding taxpayer funding for members of the house of representatives just down the hall over there here's the way they set it up if you're running for the house of representatives and you raise small dollar donations then taxpayers will fund your campaign on a six to one match oh it gets even better because you as a candidate could actually take a salary from that as well and actually be paid by the taxpayer to be able to run for office if you're running in the house of representatives can we not have a disagreement on that i don't meet many people in oklahoma that say they want to fund house members running in new york state or california or illinois or even in oklahoma they don't want to fund them with their tax dollars if their tax dollars are going to education order roads or to national defense or to border security they're all in but if they're funding a political campaign with their tax dollars i just don't meet very many people that are very excited about that but my democrat colleagues are saying if you don't support that i will blow up the senate and i will destroy 250 years of history in the functioning of the senate to get my way because to them having federal funding for elections is so important they're willing to blow the senate tradition up so they can get their way there's a general counsel that works for the federal election commission you've never met him you don't know his name he's an attorney that works for the federal election commission their bill gives that attorney a tremendous amount of power to oversee elections in america do you know who he is i don't either but if this bill passes it's a pretty powerful individual can we have a disagreement about that or is this about if i don't allow someone no one even knows their name in the federal election commission attorney to be able to run elections in the country i'll blow the senate up there's a section of it in this bill that talks about pre-clearance we actually don't know how many states would fall into pre-clearance on this many of my democrat colleagues say well it's not very many you have to have some sort of violation in the past to be able to get it but actually if you read the fine print in the bill it says if there's been a consent or an out-of-court settlement on things related to an election any time in the last 25 years you would suddenly now be in pre-clearance so literally 20 years ago if your state made some agreement on elections if there was some settlement that was done with doj during that time period didn't even go to court and you just settled it to resolve it and said yep that was a mistake that was done now that's going to come back to haunt a future generation and states will get drawn into pre-clearance which let me just describe what that means pre-clearance means your state legislature can no longer pass legislation on elections until you contact the attorney general of the united states and ask permission first so now your state legislature works for the attorney general of the united states whoever that person may be in the future it actually gives them the ability to be able to control anything on election law in your state even though we don't even know who that is and we don't how many states are actually included what i've heard over and over again from my democratic colleagues are well if we don't do this right now our elections are destroyed in the future because have you seen the things that republicans are doing all over the country have you seen the terrible laws that have been passed since 2020 it's like actually i have my state's one of them and i was surprised when i saw my state on the list of 34 different laws that are out there that have been passed that are terrible for america so we've got to be able to federalize all elections i was surprised to see my state on the list and so when i looked on the list to see what was the terrible thing that passed in my state here's what i discovered our bill our state passed house bill 2663. house bill 2663 did a couple of things it added an extra day of early voting for the general elections added an extra day of in-person early voting and it said if you request an absentee ballot you have to do that 15 days prior to the election do you know why we did that because the united states postal service contacted every state and asked them to do that because the postal service said we can no longer guarantee we can get something mailed to a person and give them time to get it actually mailed back in time for the election so to make sure people's votes actually count we did what the united states postal service actually recommended to us we moved our request for an absentee ballot to 15 days before the election to make sure every vote would count you want to know something fun so did the state of new york they made the exact same change so apparently the state of new york is also into voter suppression the same as the state of oklahoma is but you know what's really happening my democratic colleagues are running around the nation getting on the news and saying there's 34 new laws passed by republicans they're destroying the right to vote and apparently no one in the media is saying list one because if they would have listed one they would have listed the state of oklahoma added added an extra day of in-person voting and did what the united states postal service asked us to do the exact same thing that the state of new york did let me give you some other things that have happened in other states in florida there's a requirement that voters provide the last four digits of their social security number or their driver's license number or their florida id number when they request a mail-in ballot to make sure it's actually them it's pretty straightforward that doesn't sound like voter suppression that sounds like just verifying that a person is asking to vote by absentee is actually the person voting they made it very simple you could just do any numbers they're not even showing id they're saying you just give the last four digits of your social security number which everyone has all they're just trying to make sure is that person's actually there and is actually who they say they are but they're listed as being voter suppression there arizona is requiring a voter signature on early ballots as do a lot of states already that's not been a big issue on that in louisiana here this is a really big one in louisiana louisiana and utah now i understand why democrats are challenging this in louisiana and utah they required that deceased voters being take taken off the voter rolls those that are deceased they're taken off the voter rolls that's being listed as voter suppression i have to tell you i have a friend of mine that said to me when i die would you make sure that i'm buried in a blue state because i want to make sure i can continue to vote it's a running old joke about i want to keep voting when i'm dead the state of louisiana in the state of utah all they did was say we want to be able to clean up our voter rolls to be able to take off the names of people we know and have verified that they're actually dead but that's considered voter suppression and my democratic colleagues are running around the nation saying there's 34 new laws that are suppressing the rights to vote when this is the kind of stuff that's actually been passed around the country now they'll say oh well you can list those i understand those but there are a couple of them that are really egregious and i've heard several folks say do you realize that the state of georgia the state of georgia in the law that they passed won't allow people to be able to pass out water to people in line that is voter suppression well did you know that new law in georgia has been the old law in the state of new york for years so that you couldn't campaign in line people that are actual poll workers that are volunteers there they can pass out food and water but the state of georgia did a law just like the state of new york already has i haven't heard senator schumer say that's voter suppression in new york but he declared that to be voter suppression in georgia in fact even georgia's senators here stood up to be able to protest that they were playing baseball in georgia because of it when the state of new york already has it i've also heard folks say well there are some of the some of the things that these states have passed that they're actually removing the ability of the state chief election official to administer elections that's dangerous because then just a legislature can just declare whoever they want to declare that sounds horrible if true that would be terrible it just doesn't happen to be factually true but it's just getting spun like crazy that republican states are out there taking away the rights of their people to be able to vote and their vote be counted it's just not factually true they'll go to georgia and they'll say they stripped the secretary of state's authority to oversee elections here's what georgia actually did the georgia secretary of state still the chief election official for the state of georgia they still oversee all election activity in the state nothing changed on that but georgia did replace the secretary of state on the state election board with a nonpartisan chair making the secretary of state a non-voting member that did happen the law did provide new authority to the board to suspend county or municipal election superintendents and to appoint superintendents to oversee the jurisdiction yep that's part of the law but this only happens that would only happen after an investigation by a performance review board a hearing by the state election board the board then must determine that the election administrator and the jurisdictions committed at least three violations of state election law or has demonstrated non-feasants malfeasance gross negligence in the administration of elections the law also prohibits the board from suspending more than four superintendents it allows for a suspended superintendent to petition the state for reinstatement it has a whole process of due process that actually gets carried out why do they do this well because there were actual examples in the election of election workers that were fired by the county elections directors for shredding voter registration applications that's a crime so they set up a process with full due process not to overturn elections but to make sure county election officials actually are following the law that doesn't sound like voter suppression to me that just sounds like running free and fair elections oh but arizona arizona has a new law that provides the attorney general to have the authority to defend the state's election laws in courts rather than the secretary of state so they just shifted their responsibility of who defends state election laws secretary of state still the chief election officer in in arizona but actually doesn't go to court their state attorney general does that kind of makes sense to me but apparently my democratic colleagues don't agree they've spun this whole web of myth and said we have to federalize every election in america we have to take over every state voting system in america washington d.c needs to be the one to be able to run everything or else if we don't we'll destroy the traditions of the senate and get our way no matter what can i just read to you from the voting rights act of 1965 the law that's still in place in america it says no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard practice or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any state or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the united states to vote on account of race or color voting rights act of 1965 still the law of the land and should be so what's happening now with this well there's two big issues here one is this fight over voting whether states make decisions on voting or whether washington d.c democrats make states on voting for their states even if it's a democrat state and then the next big issue is are the democrats in this room actually going to destroy the filibuster and silence their rights of the the minority in america now if you would have asked me four years ago i would have said no way that's not going to happen because a group of democrats and a group of republicans joined together and said we are committed to not destroying the legislative filibuster why because it's what makes the house and the senate different the house and the senate are not just ones bigger and one smaller the house and the senate operate differently and the senate has been the place for two and a half centuries where the debate occurs in the rights of individual senators to be able to debate the issues defend their state talk about the rights of americans this happens in the senate the majority rules the show in the house if they have 218 of 435 they don't care what the other side thinks people when they talk about bipartisanship never bring up the house or representatives they just don't bipartisanship doesn't happen in the house of representatives the way it happens in the senate but the reason it happens in the senate is because of this thing called the filibuster it was interesting when i was first elected into the senate in 2014 the people that called me between my election and when i came were almost all democrats almost all of them they want to introduce themselves they want to say what are you interested in because in the senate we have to work together to be able to get things done and so i had all these democrats that reached out to me to say let's start trying to find areas of common ground we're going to disagree on lots of things but let's find the things we're going to agree on because we have to come to consensus because we're the united states senate that's commonly understood by senators which is why in 2017 in the middle of the year a group of republicans and senators wrote a letter this letter to mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer in that letter i'm going to read it right here from this paragraph it says we are mindful of the unique role the senate plays in the legislative process and we are steadfastly committed to ensuring that this great american institution continues to serve as the world's greatest deliberative body therefore here's their request therefore we're asking you to join us in opposing any effort to curtail the existing rights and prerogatives of senators to engage in full robust and extended debate as we consider legislation before this body in the future this group of senators in 2017 wrote to mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer and said do not allow any changes we are fully committed to making no changes in the filibuster don't allow it to happen for legislation don't allow it here were those that signed this document and said this is what we believe kamala harris now vice president united states chris coons who led the letter among all democrats patrick leahy who's the person who's held this institution together dianne feinstein amy klobuchar kirsten gillibrand cory booker michael bennett joe manchin angus king mark warner bob casey martin heinrich jeanne shaheen jared brown brian schatz maria cantwell maisie hirono john tester tom carper maggie hassan tammy duckworth tim kaine jack reed ed markey debbie stabenow sheldon whitehouse bob menendez all said don't change the legislative filibuster in fact they asked me along with everyone else to join them in opposing any efforts to make changes to the filibuster it didn't just stop there there were lots of other conversations that happened during that time period there were lots of interviews and dialogue about it let me just read some of the comments that were made during that time period george stephanopoulos on abc's program asked of dick durbin the number two leader for democrats ask dick durbin what do you think about doing away with the filibuster dick durbin replied this in 2018. well i can tell you that would be the end of the senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our founding fathers we have to acknowledge our respect for the minority and that's what the senate tries to do in its composition and its procedure that's dick durbin in 2018. john tester was asked in 2019 about the legislative filibuster and he said i don't want to see the senate become the house he then said if you're asking me about the filibuster changes i'm a no that would be a mistake senator angus king made this comment in 2020. he said i know it can be frustrating but i think legislation is better when it has some bipartisan support senator dianne feinstein in 2020 said filibuster is part of the senate tradition which creates a sobering effect on the body which i think is healthy one more comment from angus king angus king was asked about it on cnn about the filibuster and he replied back he's 100 percent opposed to killing the filibuster 100 percent senator cory booker responded about the filibuster he said my colleagues and i and everybody i've talked to believe the legislative filibuster should stay there and i will personally resist efforts to get rid of it senator chris coons when asked about this in 2018 he replied i am committed to never voting to change the legislative filibuster never senator jackie rosen in 2019 was asked about this and she replied i think we should keep the legislative filibuster it's one of the few things that we have left in order to let all the voices be heard here in the senate she also said we have to look not at just when you're in the majority but what does it do when you're in the minority you have to be mindful of that jeanne shaheen was asked on cnn about the legislative filibuster in 2021 and she answered just simply no i would not support eliminating the 60 vote threshold would not do it senator jack reed was asked in 2017 during the same time period this letter came out which he was a signatory for he said the filibuster is not in the constitution or in the original senate rules but we have a bicameral system for a reason and this legislative tool serves as a critical uh serves a critical purpose in ensuring the functioning of our democratic republic yes it sometimes slows the process down and some have abused or subverted it but it remains an important part in our system of checks and balances i agree i agree with that jack reed senator bernie sanders even was asked about the filibuster in 2019 and he just replied no i'm not crazy about getting rid of the filibuster senator mazie hirono from hawaii said i'm not particularly in favor of getting rid of the filibuster because that means majority rule and that's what happens in the house senator bob casey was asked in 2019 about the filibuster and he just replied i'm a yes on keeping the filibuster one of my favorites senator sherrod brown was asked about this in 2019 and he replied i think there are ways of getting things through congress with the legislative filibuster still in place just takes a chief executive that knows what she or he is doing listen this is not some trivial exercise this is 250 years of history my democratic colleagues are planning to flush down the toilet because they don't get their way on a bill we rightfully have very strong philosophical disagreements on hey i don't agree on giving rapists and sex offenders who are convicted felons voting rights when they get out of prison i'm not alone in that i don't agree in federal tax dollars being used to be able to pay for political campaigns i'm not alone in that that's not that crazy i don't agree that my state should have to go play mother may i with some future attorney general because they want to add another day of voting i'm not alone in that but to say if you don't do this now i'll destroy the senate is a toxic shift for our republic it is a violation of what you have said before in public in fact written to the leadership of the senate and said please don't do this and we will not do this and now years later go it's not convenient that was when we were in the minority we had one opinion now we have different core beliefs because we're in the majority interestingly enough joe biden today stood in georgia and made this statement he said today i'm making it clear to protect our democracy i support changing the senate rules whichever way they need to be changed to prevent a minority of senators from blocking action on voting rights when it comes to project protecting majority rule in america the majority should rule in the united states senate well that's fascinating now that he's president in the united states it is my way or i'll destroy the whole place when he was senator joe biden he had a different opinion senator joe biden wasn't about i'm the president so i get what i want senator joe biden said this statement folks who want to see the change and eliminate procedural mechanisms designed for the express purposes of guaranteeing individual rights and they also have consequences they undermine the protections of a minority point of view in the heat of majority excess but now he says no i'm in the majority i should get my way senator joe biden said well i've been here 32 years most the time in the majority he said whenever you're in the majority it's frustrating to see the other side block a bill or nominee you support i've walked in your shoes and i get it getting rid of the filibuster has long-term consequences if there's one thing i've learned in my years here once you change the rules and surrender the senate's institutional power you never get it back senator joe biden said simply put the nuclear option would transform the senate from the so-called cooling saucer our founding fathers talked about to cool the passions of the day to a pure majoritarian body like a parliament we've heard a lot in recent weeks about the rights and majority and obstructionism but the senate's not meant to be a place of pure majoritarianism is majority rule what you really want it's what he said as a senator but as president his demand was majority rule or will break every rule in the senate to get what we want senator schumer in his public statements has been very clear would be doomsday for democracy he said if you change the filibuster this is the statement senator schumer made in 2017. the same senator schumer that has spent the last 12 months trying to find a way to tear down the filibuster in 2017 when there was the debate going on around this senator schumer said on the floor of the senate standing right there i hope the republican leader and i he said can in the coming months find a way to build a firewall around the legislative filibuster which is the most important distinction between the senate and the house without the 60-vote threshold for legislation senator schumer said the senate becomes a majoritarian institution like the house much more subject to the winds of short-term electoral change no senator would like to see that happen so let's find a way to further protect the 60-vote rule for legislation that was senator schumer in 2017 but now it is i'm in power i'm going to do what i want this is not a flippin issue and as i've spoken to some of my democratic colleagues they seem to believe we'll just take this vote and no one's going to care in fact some of my democrat colleagues are saying we know we're going to lose senator manchin and senator cinema have already made public comments they're not going to go with us so we're going to take this make a statement our progressive base wants us to be able to do this it has no consequences it's not going to pass anyway so we'll just do it except they're forgetting five years from now 10 years from now there'll be another time just like this and maybe democrats will be in a slightly larger majority and maybe senator cinema and senator manchin won't be here at that moment and the majority leader democrat senator at that point will step forward and say you voted on this in 2022 it's time for us to vote on it now and democratic activists will rush at you and will say don't you dare change what you did tear the place down let's get what we want i've spoken to so many of my colleagues and said don't do this and they've quietly responded back to me i don't want to do this i'm not here to attack my colleagues you each make your own decisions but these are decisions that matter these are the decisions that a hundred years from now will still guide the direction of the senate these are the decisions that will direct our republic we are the only body that has a protection for the minority voice i think the only legislative body in the world that's designed like this and it's been part of the secret sauce of america that the minority in america however large or small it is has a voice my democratic colleagues are now saying we no longer want the minority to have a voice in america if you're in the minority opinion you don't count sit down shut up we're in the majority that has never been the american way not in 250 years this has been the place where we've argued debated and where yes i've talked to house members who've said good bills went to die but the senate has been the spot where all americans get to speak and my democratic colleagues are seriously considering this week saying no more because we want to pass a voting bill that gives federal dollars to house candidates and gives felons the right to vote and takes away voter id when the world what does this body become that people who sign this document page after page of them i mean i can bring out page after page of senators who have signed this and have said do not take away the legislative filibuster that now are just flipping and flip it and saying it won't matter yeah it does a hundred years from now this week will still matter i encourage my democratic colleagues to think carefully on this one because this one counts with that i yield the floor you

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

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Keywords: Sen. James Lankford, Vice President Kamala Harris, filibuster

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Length: 42min 32sec (2552 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 11 2022