Ted Cruz Successfully Blocks Chuck Schumer's Attempt To Pass For The People Act

foreign the Nays are 49 the motion to discharge is agreed to and the bill will be placed on the calendar and now Mr President I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of s 2093 for the people act of 2021. is there objection order oh senator from Texas preserving the right to object this bill would constitute a federal government takeover of Elections it would constitute a massive power grab by democrats it would disenfranchise millions of Americans and it would do precisely the opposite of its nominal title for the people it would it is instead for the politicians because it entrenches politicians and ensures that the people cannot vote them out of office it would strike down virtually every reasonable voter Integrity law in the country including voter ID laws supported by the overwhelming majority of this country including prohibitions on ballot harvesting again widely supported by people in this country it would mandate that felons be allowed to vote and it would automatically register millions of illegal aliens to vote it would profoundly undermine democracy in this country and for that reason I object the objection is heard Mr President Majority Leader the Republican minority has just prevented the Senate from even having a debate a debate just that on voting rights in this country I understand my Republican colleagues don't approve of every aspect of the democratic Bill to protect voting rights but surely there are areas where our two parties can find some agreement partisan gerrymandering for instance has plagued our country for too long it skews our democracy towards the extremes it strips the American people of their right to have a truly representative government voters ought to pick their politicians not the other way around but in so many states partisan legislatures draw legislators draw maps that artificially maximize the number of seats that the majority party will win some districts are so safe that the most extreme candidates can run and win with hardly any competition surely my Republican colleagues would agree that partisan gerrymandering deserves a debate on the senate floor it's a small part of S1 but one that has broad Universal support so I ask unanimous consent and the support by the way of all 50 of my colleague of 49 of my Democratic colleagues so I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s-2670 calendar 119 the redistricting Reform Act of 2021. is there objection Mr President senator from Texas reserving the right to object the text of the Constitution explicitly assigns the power to engage in redistricting to elected state legislatures in the states there is a reason for that that ensures that redistricting is controlled by the people we have an unfortunate pattern in today's Congress which is today's Democrats no longer believe in democracy their bill S1 what many call the corrupt politicians Act is designed to prevent the voters from voting Democrats out of office this bill the bill to remove the state legislatures from their constitutionally appointed responsibility of being in charge of of redistricting would instead assign that to commissions and ultimately to the federal courts to unelected federal judges now redistricting and gerrymandering can lead to ugly consequences this is not new the founders were well aware of the ugly consequences of gerrymandering indeed the very word gerrymander comes from Eldridge Jerry one of the founders whose District was so contorted it looked like a salamander that's where the district came from the founders knew that if you give redistricting to elected politicians they will act based on political concerns the reason the founders did so is even with those downsides it keeps the process accountable to the people if you instead hand it over to unelected commissions or to unelected federal judges the people are disenfranchised that is a serious mistake I would note over a decade ago I defended the constitutionality and the Constitutional assignment of that responsibility to the state legislatures before the United States Supreme Court in the Texas redistricting case and we want a landmark 5-4 Victory with a supreme court upheld the clear constitutional authorization of legislatures to engage in redistricting even if they engage in political concerns because the check on that is not unelected judges second guessing the people rather the check on that is democracy and the people engaging in their own check and balance accordingly I object Mr President the objection is heard the majority leader so the American people should understand Republicans just blocked the Senate from even debating legislation to end partisan gerrymandering and make our Congress more representative of the people surely our Republican colleagues however would agree that billions of dollars in Anonymous campaign donations every year is not a function of a healthy democracy surely they must agree that America America's Representatives should have only one boss the people not the special interests so I'm going to ask the Senate now to debate a simple measure to bring a much needed transparency to campaign donations just transparency not even limits although I would certainly support those at the very least the American people deserve to know who is trying to influence their representatives and how strenuously so I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S 2671 calendar 120 the disclose Act of 2021 which has the support of our entire caucus is their objection Mr President senator from Texas reserving the right to object you know I would note there is a long history of government trying to force the disclosure of the identity of political contributions and much of that history is sorted indeed in a landmark case before the United States Supreme Court racist Southern Democratic politicians tried to force the NAACP to hand over their donor list and they wanted to do so for reasons that were not difficult to discern because they intended to persecute those who dared contribute to the NAACP and the Supreme Court in a landmark decision concluded that the constitution protects against that forced disclosure but I will say the majority leader said just a few minutes ago that surely there must be some area of common ground and indeed there is on this issue I think all of us if we were speaking in a moment of Candor if we were not engaged in our typical partisan battle on the floor would acknowledge the current system is stupid the current system makes no sense super Pacs make no sense why is that because in all of our elections every one of us has run for elections there are super Pacs which are independent groups they are it is illegal for us as candidates to speak with those independent groups and in every one of our races I see the center from Arizona he's going to have a hotly contested race it wouldn't surprise me to see a hundred million dollars or more spent in his race perhaps on both sides much of that will be spent in super Pacs it is illegal for us as candidates to communicate with those super Pacs and so we are left with the bizarre situation where there's millions or sometimes tens of millions of dollars being spent on behalf of us Millions sometimes tens of millions of dollars being spent attacking us and we can't communicate with them we hope it has some bearing or relevance to what we believe every Congress since I've been here I've introduced legislation to end this this is legislation called the Super PAC elimination Act this act does two very simple things number one it allows Unlimited individual contributions to Federal campaigns not from unions not from corporations but from real human beings from people unlimited contributions I would note this is the way the state of Texas handles State elections number two my legislation the sewer Pac elimination act requires immediate 24-hour disclosure so if an individual writes a check to a campaign that gets disclosed immediately and you can debate about whether that contribution was corrosive or not this legislation would not prohibit super Pacs but as a practical matter super Pacs would fade from rev rep relevance because every candidate would much prefer money given to their campaign where you can spend on your own message it would make far more sense to have an open transparent system accordingly I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of a bill at the desk that would protect freedom of speech in America's electoral process and ensure transparency in campaign Finance I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time in past and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table Mr President Majority Leader I object to the senator from Texas's legislation it's obvious to just about every American it would make a bad situation even worse so I object rejection is heard is their objection is their objection the original request from the center of New York I object objectionist Mr President before I turn it over to some of my colleagues so Democrats have tried to do something very simple we ask the Senate to start debate just debate on legislation to protect voting rights and strengthen our democracy Republicans said no Democrats are asked to debate a measure Democrats asked to debate a measure just to prevent partisan gerrymandering and I'm frankly in my colleague's response he was all over the lot it's good to have politicians do it it's not good to have politicians do it it's good to have judges do it it's not good to have judges do it we would set standards to make sure that in a state like Wisconsin where 53 percent of the people voted for a democratic member of the State Assembly only a third of the districts were Democratic drawn by a republican legislature so Republicans have said no they don't even want to debate these issues Democrats asked to debate the measure to bring much needed transparency to campaign donations and get special interest dark money out of politics Republicans still said no so let there be no mistake about what is going on here we have reached a point in this chamber where Republicans appear to oppose any measure any measure no matter how common sense to protect voting rights and strengthen our democracy let there be no mistake both inside this chamber and outside of it Republicans have formed a wall a total wall of opposition against progress on voting rights in the United States Senate even on an issue as sacred is the right to vote Senate Republicans refused to allow even a debate they're afraid to debate it yesterday morning we saw what it looks like when the Senate comes together this is what it looks like when it doesn't apparently there are very serious and important limits to bipartisanship there are some issues where Republicans refuse to join us in good faith to make progress for our country I never thought I'd see the day when voting rights which used to be supported in a bipartisan way as recently as 2006. would be one of those issues but that's what we have come to Total Republican intransigence when it comes to simple measures to make our democracy more perfect and strengthen the hand of the individual voter now let me be clear Republicans refusing to support anything on voting rights is not an excuse for Democrats to do nothing in recent weeks I have met with a number of Democratic senators Senators Klobuchar and Merkley mansion and Warnock in Padilla Cain King and tester and Mansion to discuss a compromise Voting Rights bill we've made a great deal of progress on that legislation we had a very good meeting as late recently as yesterday afternoon and we intend to Rally around it so tonight I am filing cloture on a vehicle to allow the Senate to take up the compromised Voting Rights bill Voting Rights Voting Rights will be the first matter of legislative business when the Senate returns to session in September our democracy demands no less I yield the floor a yield to my colleague from uh Oregon and then my colleague from Rhode Island the center for Morgan we have the privilege to come to this floor and examine issue is important to every American and what could be more important to the fundamental right to participate in the guidance of our country to be able to cast about that Ballot Box it's the pulsating heart of our Republic in fact it's 56 years ago just a couple days ago that President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. and what did he say he said it's wrong deadly wrong to deny any American the opportunity to vote what was deadly wrong in 1965 is deadly wrong in 2021. it's hard to believe that over 50 years over half a century has passed and we're reverting to that period before 1965. where there was a systematic effort to Target specific groups of Voters and prevent them from going to the poll and we all know how this worked on Election Day there'd be fewer Precinct voting locations in those areas you didn't want to vote and they would be understaffed so there'd be long lines or their voting machines would be out of order or they would change the location every two years so people would be confused about where to go or they would locate them where there was no parking all of these things deliberately aimed at preventing black Americans from voting and preventing other communities of color from voting well today we're seen in state after state after State an expanded version of this not just targeting black Americans and other communities of color but also targeting poor communities and college students and we see these laws unfolding in just the recent months I would expect a hundred of our colleagues here to stand up and defend The Ballot Box aren't we long removed from those days of that racist past but apparently not so some of us have to stand up and say we are going to stand up for the vision of our constitution we're all men and women are created equal and every man and woman has a right to participate in the guidance of this country you know we know that in the founding of our country we had a beautiful Vision imperfectly formed that black Americans Native Americans women were not allowed to vote we fix those things over time we've progressed in an ark to full opportunity and that's what we're fighting for now full opportunity of every citizen to have a full measure of what it means to be participant in a Republican oh there's much more in this bill to mend the assault unequal representation through the Diabolical gerrymandering denied to bias the outcome for one party over the other and certainly to keep billionaires from buying elections and when we ask people around the country Independence Democrats Republicans they all say we do not want billionaires to buy elections we do not want equal representation destroyed by diabolical gerrymandering and we want every citizen to have access to Ballot Box but in this chamber suddenly the views of the Republicans across this country are forgotten by my Republican colleagues across the aisle in that thirsty quest for power they're willing to violate the fundamental principles that Inspire our nation and it is wrong deadly wrong today as it was in 1965. thank you Mr President Rhode Island word on dark money when the Republican justices on the Supreme Court opened the floodgates of unlimited money in the disgraceful citizens united decision that suddenly made something new very important and that was to hide who you are when you're spending the money if the biggest check you can write is five thousand dollars there's no great premium in hiding Who You Are when you can write a five million dollar check to back a candidate suddenly hiding who you are becomes extremely valuable and salient so suddenly this became very real but those justices who had opened the door to unlimited money when they made that decision in order to justify that decision they had to say that the spending had to be transparent otherwise the citizens united decision would not have worked in the Constitutional scheme they had to say that but for the next decade what did they do about it case after case came before them where the dark money problem was raised we rode through a billion dollars in dark money being spent in our elections this was on the front page of the newspaper this was being done in plain view and what did the Republican justices on the Supreme Court do to enforce their own stated requirement of transparency not one thing and so we have had a decade of Corruption of government by billionaire interests who can hide who they are and operate through an enormous Phalanx of phony front groups whom they have stood up and if you want to know how real this is look at what we have had to do in the reconciliation measure to address climate change because when I got here there were Republicans willing to address climate change we had bill after Bill in the Senate that were bipartisan and serious and sincere that stopped dead in January of 2010 when citizens united was decided the dark money spigots opened the fossil fuel industry behind them enforced compliance across the entire Republican Party if you cross the fossil fuel industry on climate change you were Bob Inglis you were out you were done if you lined up with them and did what they said in came tens of millions of dollars in dark money to support you it was a devil's bargain and it cost us a lost decade on climate change and now we have to go forward sadly in a partisan way to solve this problem that is the pressure of dark money in our politics it is behind the capture of the Supreme Court it is behind voter suppression this is demonstrable stuff and we've got to put an end to it and it is a tragedy and a disgrace that we can't go to cleaning up the dark money mess my Republican colleagues and their dark money groups are actually at the point now where they're accusing us of taking dark money they're accusing Democrats of being dark Money Party well we just settled that question tonight Democrats want to clean it up they want to protect it it's as simple as that that's all you need to know I yield the floor

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

Views: 1,948,358

Keywords: Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Chuck Schumer, For the People Act

Id: Z9CZpiH3KaE

Length: 22min 57sec (1377 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021