The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“FOR THE PEOPLE ACT OF 2021” mentioning John Thune was published in the Senate section on page S1724 on March 24.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FOR THE PEOPLE ACT OF 2021
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on one more issue, I was just over at the Rules Committee hearing. It is the first hearing I attended as majority leader because it was about S. 1, so important. And there, I showed--I showed my anger and frustration at what Republican legislatures are attempting to do throughout the country, take away people's right to vote, particularly people of color.
You know, it has been more than 160 years since the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments abolished slavery, but Jim Crow is still with us. When a State says you need a notary public to cast an absentee ballot, it is no different than asking African Americans to guess the number of jellybeans in the jar before they vote. It is certainly no different in intent to deprive them of their right, their constitutional right to vote.
And here we have Republican Senators making excuses for these vicious and often bigoted deprivations of the right to vote. They say that this is a State issue. No, Congress has passed numerous laws dealing with Federal voting rights, and, in fact, the Constitution explicitly says that the Congress has the ability and right to do it. And yet Republicans who lost the election, instead of doing what we should be doing in a democracy--when you lose, you are supposed to figure out why you lost and win over the voters you didn't, but they would just deprive the voters who voted against them of the right to vote. That is eerily reminiscent of what dictators like Erdogan in Turkey or Orban in Hungary would do.
Our Republican Party has sunk so low that they have a Republican leader who is over in the Rules Committee defending these actions by State legislatures.
I asked him and all the Republicans to give us a reason. Why did the Georgia Legislature only pick Sundays to say there should be no early voting on Sunday? We know why. It is because that is the day African Americans vote in the ``souls to the polls'' operation, where they go from church to vote. It is despicable.
Every time you think the country has moved a long way, you see steps taken backward. Let's make no mistake about it, the shadow of Donald Trump--his big lie, his incessant focus on doing anything that benefits him, no matter if it is the truth or not, if it is constitutional or not, if it is racist or not--has now fallen over this party, and they are not even standing up to protect the sacred right to vote.
Shame, shame, shame on all of them. Shame. How can you defend these actions throughout legislatures, which the Washington Post said would amount to tens of millions of people losing their right to vote?
Are we a democracy? Are we? The shadow of Donald Trump falls dark and large over this caucus when they act like that, and it happens far too often. We will not let this stand. We will not let this stand. S. 1 will pass this body.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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