Prepared Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
Hearing on the Voting Rights Act
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Mr. Chairman, today the Committee considers whether the Voting Rights Act needs to be amended.
For almost 50 years, the Voting Rights Act has made effective the commands of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in protecting the right to vote. Its enactment was bipartisan. Its reauthorization was bipartisan on multiple occasions. The current reauthorization of the law will continue in effect for another seventeen years.
I am pleased to have played a role several times in reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act. In 1982, I worked extensively with Senators Kennedy and Dole to make sure that the law was extended.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the formula for preclearance under Section 5 was unconstitutional. It reminded us that since 1965, circumstances have drastically changed for the better. No one should doubt that voting discrimination is far less widespread than in the 1960’s. For that, we have much to be grateful. And, certainly, the Voting Rights Act has contributed to that progress.
All the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County did was strike down a formula almost 50 years old that determined which states and political subdivisions were required to ask the Justice Department for prior permission to make even the most minor changes in voting procedures.
Over the years, Justice has denied a progressively smaller percentage of those requests. The Justice Department since Shelby County has continued to bring voting rights cases under sections 2 and 3 of the current law. It has prevailed in a number of those cases.
The current Voting Rights Act is strongly enforced and is protecting the rights of all Americans to vote. As the New York Times reported last week, rulings on voter registration laws “have ensured that challenges will remain a significant part of the voting landscape, perhaps for years.”
The bill before us contains problems that the witnesses will go into. For instance, the bill seems to create only a fig leaf of protection for legitimate voter ID laws, which are supported by 70 percent or more of all Americans in every poll that I’ve seen. But, arguably, the bill creates back door mechanisms that will be used to negate legitimate voter ID laws.
There is little doubt that this bill goes well beyond addressing Shelby County and beyond the coverage formula of the Voting Rights Act it’s meant to replace. Given that, supporters need to show a clear need for this legislation, especially given that the remainder of the Voting Rights Act still exists and is being successfully enforced.
At this point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask that letters from various state Secretaries of State be included in the record. These letters note that the bill would impose significant and unnecessary costs on states and localities that have taken significant steps to eradicate voting discrimination.
I welcome today’s witnesses.
Two organizations present today, the NAACP and the “Inc fund,” as suggested by its name, are non-profit corporations. Separate from this bill, the Judiciary Committee is now considering a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to restrict the political activity of corporations such as the Inc fund and the NAACP. We held a hearing on the amendment earlier this month. I expect the Committee to vote on the amendment next month.
An important case in the 1950’s brought by the NAACP and litigated by the Inc. fund led the Supreme Court to recognize the First Amendment protects freedom of association. When the Supreme Court in 1976 ruled that the First Amendment prohibits limits on campaign and independent expenditures, it expressly relied on that NAACP case.
The constitutional amendment before the Committee would reverse the 1976 case and allow Congress to infringe on the ability of nonprofit corporations such as the NAACP to amplify the voices of their members in the political process.
These two proposals are said to be about giving voters the ability to elect candidates of their choice. But one would censor corporations and others from presenting differing views to those voters to help them determine what their choice actually is.
Both reflect degrees of elitism.
Proponents of these measures don’t trust voters to sift through varying opinions and electoral claims, giving weight to what makes sense and disregarding what doesn’t. And they don’t trust the elected officials the voters chose to make decisions without spending taxpayer money to ask Justice Department bureaucrats in Washington for advance approval.
This is the case even when the courts are available to remedy discrimination.
I trust the voters. I don’t trust the Attorney General to properly exercise the expanded powers this bill would give him.
This Attorney General has repeatedly enforced the law as he wishes it were written, not as we wrote it. That applies to drugs, immigration, health care, even the Recess Appointments Clause of the Constitution. He has treated the exercise of important Congressional oversight powers with disdain. That is why the House is currently in litigation to hold him in contempt of Congress. Inevitably, that record of lawlessness will be a factor in consideration of this bill.
I am interested in exploring with our panel today how the bill would operate and the status of voting rights in America today.
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