Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, today presided over a hearing entitled “Voter Suppression and Continuing Threats to Democracy.”
Chairman Cohen conducted the hybrid hearing from his home in Memphis in front of a Ted Faiers print of the late Illinois Senator and Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, who he pointed out sponsored the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when the Republican Party was still the Party of Lincoln. Dirksen voted to end the filibuster that had kept the Senate from considering the historic measure. See attached image.
In his opening statement, Chairman Cohen said in part:
“As this Subcommittee has documented exhaustively through 13 hearings over the course of the last three years, voting rights for Black Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, disabled Americans and other historically disadvantaged groups has once again come under significant threat in many parts of our country.
“The extensive record we built through those hearings showed that many states have adopted laws making absentee voting harder, reducing opportunities for early voting, and closing polling locations in predominantly minority precincts, among other things.
“According to the Brennan Center for Justice, between January 1 and December 7, 2021, “more than 440 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions.” These are the most “extraordinary” numbers that the Brennan Center has seen in any year since it began tracking voting legislation in 2011.
“Disturbingly, since 2020, we have also seen states changing their election administration laws and processes to politicize the counting of votes already cast. In some cases, these measures could allow partisan actors to interfere with vote counts or even overturn the results….
“Now, it appears that many on the other side of the aisle have come to the cynical conclusion that it no longer pays politically to protect voting rights. Indeed, they seem to have come to the conclusion—erroneously, in my view—that they can only win if they suppress the right to vote for certain Americans.
“This is a tragedy. It is a tragedy for our country that some of its leaders have embraced the idea in the year 2022 that true multiracial and multiethnic democracy is a threat to them.”
See the entire opening statement here.
Congressman Cohen offered much of his five minutes for questioning witnesses to Congresswoman Lucy McBath of Georgia. See his brief line of questioning here.
Witnesses at today’s hearing were:
- Ms. Helen Butler, Executive Director, Georgia Coalition for the Peoples Agenda;
- Mr. Domingo Garcia, National President, League of United Latin American Citizens;
- Mr. Wade Henderson, Interim President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights;
- Ms. Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.;
- Mr. Derrick Johnson, President and CEO, NAACP;
- Mr. T. Russell Nobile, Senior Attorney, Judicial Watch, Inc.;
- Ms. Maureen Riordan, Litigation Counsel, Public Interest Legal Foundation;
- Mr. Thomas A. Saenz, President and General Counsel, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund;
- Mr. Damon T. Hewitt, President and Executive Director, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
