introduced and tried to pass several versions of what they call the voting rights legislation. the for the people actened a the for the freedom to vote act. but these wholesome titles seriously are misleading. the bills are partisan, are partisan power grabs that will give the federal government unprecedented power over our elections and weaken the ability of state legislatures to administer their own election laws. federalizing election procedure would export traditional state authority to the federal government and defer decisions on how citizens elect their congressional representatives to congress. this is inherently less responsive and less accountable. this legislation would undermine state legislatures by sending taxpayer dollars to political candidates for the house of representatives, weaken popular state voter i.d. laws, and make updating voter laws to ensure accuracy more difficult. according to a gallup poll 80% of americans support voter i.d. laws. yet, under this legislation states would be required to accept essentially any document that includes a person's name as a valid form of i.d. if you wanted to dispel the notion that voter fraud occurs in our elections, this is not a good start. one size fits all solutions, that approach that is what the democrats are pushing, is completely unfit for kansas and for the country. perhaps even more alarming, and this is the point that i would make more, i hope, strongly than what i just said, more alarming than this federal election takeover is the democrats' proposal -- proposed eng means of passing it. president biden, majority leader schumer, realizing the limitations of their slimmest possible majority in the senate have advocated for weakening the filibuster. the ability for the senate to debate legislation until 60-vote threshold is met. ironically, democrats utilize the filibuster vote margin last week to vote sanctions on russia's nord stream 2 pipeline. making use of the same 60-vote threshold they're so determined to demonize. the filibuster protects the minority. it doesn't necessarily mean republicans or democrats. it may mean just somebody with an odd idea. it may mean rural, where i come from, or urban, where other members of the senate come from. it may mean the ability for a member of the senate to speak on behalf of his or her constituents and advocate for their views. it allows every senator to have the opportunity to garner more information to seek out sponsors of a bill, to have conversations and to pull people together before we decide on how to proceed on legislation. but the filibuster does more than that. it forces us -- i'm sorry it's necessary to for us, but it forces us to work together. freedoms and liberties are protected by process. in today's world, too many people want the outcome regardless of how the process works. that process is called the constitution of the united states, and in our case there's rules of the united states senate that require a 60-vote for legislation to be considered and passed by the united states senate. in the circumstances that those are eroded, those process issues , really i want to highlight that again. it bothers me so much that in so many circumstances we set aside process because we want an end result. but in doing so, we erode the personal freedoms of kansans and all americans and those freedoms and liberties are diminished as a result. i would tell -- it's unusual for me to have as many of my colleagues on the floor as there are today while i speak, and in this case most are democrats. i would say that if we want to change the united states senate, and i'm a critic of the way that we do business here, i've never enjoyed serving in the united states senate in which it worked well. if we wanted to do something that would actually make a difference as compared to change the process by which we consider legislation, how about having committees that actually do their work? how about having hearings and markups and debate? give me the chance, give all of my colleagues the chance to participate, to participate in this democracy of developing legislation. but how many times have i voted on things that are garnered, put together, patchworked together, created by the leadership of the senate or the leadership of the house or working together, a bill that is proposed by the white house? i want to have ownership. even if i don't get my way, at least i had the opportunity, and it is the committee process that allows us to do that. and instead of fixing something fundamental, as fundamental as the congress of the united states, and having committees that work, we're going to change the process by which we can get to a bill or pass a bill and reduce the roll that people who have different ideas play there that outcome. give me ownership of legislation through a committee process. don't take away my ability to better represent kansans and americans and people in the minority by changing the 60-vote rule. americans voted for a congress that is nearly a 50-50 split between the parties in the house and a precisely 50-50 split in the senate. i don't think americans voted to give one party free reign to implement an unprecedented power grab to nationalize elections and fundamentally reshape the way the senate passes legislation. thankfully there's a bipartisan opposition to weakening the filibuster, a majority of senators agree it would bring about massive uncertainty for americans who don't want to be subbed to the -- subjected to the dramatic political swings when one election occurs when one party is in power, then the next party is in power. there's so much uncertainty in this world, because there was never the consensus to build a 60-vote margin for a piece of legislation. we must have confidence in our elections. it matters. i want everyone who is legally entitled to vote to be able to vote. & i understand that voting is a fundamental -- and i understand that voting is a fundamental right but cannians know what's best for kansans and congressional democrats would be wise not to underestimate our resolve in making our own determinations. madam president, i yield the floor. ms. baldwin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: thank you, madam president. thank you for covering the presiding chair for a little longer than usual it allow me to -- to allow me to make a few words, make an address to the senate. i rise because it is time for the senate to stand on the side of protecting our very democracy and the freedom to vote. you know, this used to be a bipartisan issue, and i was proud to know the history that the voting rights act of 1965 passed the senate 77-19. and in 1982 when it was reauthorized, extending it, president reagan said, i pledge that as long as i'm in a position to uphold the constitution, no barrier will come between our citizens and the voting booth. and this bill is a vital part of fulfilling that pledge. when i served in the house of representatives, the dean of the wisconsin delegation, representative jim sensenbrenner, a republican, led the bipartisan effort for the voting rights restoration and amendments act of 2006. you know, today we can't even get a vote in the senate on the voting rights act. why have today's republicans walked so far from those that came before them? there's a simple answer. too many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to stand up for democracy and instead chose to stand on the side of donald trump and his big lie about the 2020 election being stolen from him. it wasn't. trump lost fair and square, and president biden won, and that's simply a fact. and to suggest otherwise is a fraud that undermines people's faith in our very elections. enough is enough. we must act. we have the responsibility to do so. the threat posed by this big lie is all too real, and in my home state of wisconsin, we have a stark example of it. i come from a purple swing state. we have had many, many closely decided elections in recent history. in 2000, vice president gore won the state by less than 6,000 votes, a mere .22% margin of victory. four years later, john kerry carried the state by about 11,000 votes, a .38% margin. in both cases, despite these narrow margins, those elections went smoothly and were fair. their outcomes were not disputed. george w. bush declined to request a recount. no credible person, let alone the leader of a political party or elected official, claimed the election in wisconsin wasn't fair, free, and properly decided by the voters. once again, in 2016 we had a pretty close presidential election in wisconsin and another equally close one in 2020. president biden won wisconsin by about 20,000 votes a margin of victory of about 6.3%. in 2020, wisconsinites exercised their right to vote in record numbers, more than 75% of eligible wisconsinites voted. wisconsin voters broke the record for highest turnout ever measured in the state with every one of wisconsin's 72 counties producing an increase in turnout benefiting both presidential candidates. wisconsin's state and local officials and citizens volunteered from both political parties, did heroic work to ensure our election was smooth, safe, and fair. they took important steps to make our election system work safely and securely for all voters while the covid-19 pandemic raged in my home state. wisconsinites cast their ballots for democrats and republicans up and down the ballot, and after wisconsin county clerks in all 72 counties canvassed the results, joe biden won with a margin of over 20,000 votes. the voters of wisconsin chose joe biden and kamala harris to receive our state's ten certified electoral vote oz. but the scrutiny of those election votes through the channels provided by law continued. after an official vote count showed trump lost, his campaign requested a recount and targeted wisconsin's two more diverse counties -- milwaukee and deign. when the recount was completed, it came as nobody's surprise that it didn't change the outcome. trump lost and president biden won. the votes had been counted and recounted, but that did not stop president trump from filing a lawsuit trying to throw out 220,000 legal votes in wisconsin. fortunately, our state's highest court rejected this attempt to disenfranchise wisconsin voters and find more votes for himself. as two wisconsin supreme court justices wrote, concurring with the majority decision dismissing trump's campaign case, the evidence shows that despite a global pandemic, more than 3.2 million wisconsinites performed their civic duty. more importantly, as it relates to this lawsuit, these voters followed the rules that were in place at the time. to borrow a metaphor, wisconsin voters complied with the election real book. no penalties were committed and the final score was the result of a free and fair election. but that wasn't the end of the road for republican efforts to sow distrust in the 2020 results in wisconsin. in february 2021, a committee of the republican-controlled wisconsin state legislature by a party-line vote directed the nonpartisan legislative audit bureau to review the administration of the 2020 election. the bureau, according to its report, spoke with the staff of the bipartisan wisconsin elections commission and surveyed all 1,835 municipal clerks and 72 county clerks in the state. they also reviewed a host of records regarding the election including sworn complaints pertaining to the election that had been filed with the elections commission. in october, the bureau issued its report which did not find any evidence of widespread voter fraud or wrongdoing in the location. separately, a conservative think tank, the wisconsin institute for law and liberty, conducted its own review of the election. their report released december 2021 also concluded that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in wisconsin. in fact, -- or, the fact is that our bipartisan wisconsin voters commission conduct add free, fair, safe, and secure election just as local elections clerks did across our state. trump has still not provided any credible evidence of voter fraud or election irregularities. in fact, federal judges appointed by trump rejected on the merits his false claims about the wisconsin election. despite all of this, the republican leadership of the wisconsin legislature authorized yet another sham process to question the integrity of the 2020 elections. with a budget of at least $680,000 taxpayer dollars to boot. i would be remiss if i didn't point out that this unnecessary partisan charade came shortly after the former president called out these republican leaders by name for trying to prevent a forensic audit of the election results. this was no mere coincidence. wisconsin state republicans named michael gableman to lead this effort after he fay mustily said, and without evidence right after the november election, that it was somehow stolen. that's who's leading this probe. in august, gableman traveled to arizona on wisconsin taxpayers' dime to learn about that state's widely discredited audit supported by the cyber ninjas. then he was off to south dakota. the presiding officer: senators please take your conversations off the floor. ms. baldwin: then he was off to south dakota to attend a symposium on voter fraud led by my pillow choreography and infamous conspiracy theorist mike lindell. in no effort to show nonpartisanship or to be a neutral arbiter, gableman hired partisan actors, like head of the group that asked the supreme court to throw out the results of wisconsin's election and forced the wisconsin legislature to certify electors instead. gableman has issued wide-ranging subpoenas to local officials in wisconsin's largest cities and even threatened to jail them if they fail to comply with this taxpayer-funded promotion. -- promotion of trump's big lie. and separately, the republican leader of wisconsin's assembly elections committee began her own set of investigations issuing subpoenas to clerks in milwaukee and brown counties and later the -- the latter being the home to green bay. she had also traveled to arizona and in a press release announcing her inquiry stated that wisconsin similarly needs transparent, full, cyber forensic audit. to put it simply, there has been a constant drumbeat undermining the integrity of our elections in wisconsin since president biden was duly elected. casting doubt and undermining confidence in our elections has real consequences. it has led to harassment and threats of the hardworking state and local elections officials who worked tirelessly during an unprecedented public health crisis to make sure wisconsinites could safely and securely exercise their right to vote. elections officials across the state have received dangerous threats and harassment for simply doing their job. the executive director of the milwaukee election commission reported being told she deserved to be hung in the public square received a threatening letter at her home calling her traitorous and a profane insult that i will not repeat on the the floor of the senate. and she received a profanity-laced voicemail telling her she should be convicted and hanged. another wisconsin clerk reported being called every name you can imagine and receiving threats that led a local police department centering to conduct a security review of the clerk's office and the clerk feeling the need to install a camera at her house for security. in rock county, wisconsin, the county clerk's office asked for protection from the local sheriff in the wake of angry calls after a news report had misstated the county's votes. one of the members of the wisconsin elections commission had pictured of her home posted on social media and received threatening messages about her children. even elected officials are attacking the role of these individuals in administering our elections. a republican sheriff has called for the five members of the bipartisan wisconsin election commission to face criminal charges for guidance they provided during the pandemic about collecting absentee ballots from nursing homes. madam president, let's be clear. on january 6, 2021, donald trump not only incited a violent insurrection against our democracy, he also incited an ongoing attack on voting rights across america. across the country we've seen more than 400 bills that restrict access to voting that have been introduced in 49 states. in wisconsin, the republican-controlled state legislature has advanced legislation curtailing voting rights and putting up barriers to make it harder to vote. last year they passed measures that would make it harder for voters to turn in their absentee ballots. they have passed legislation that threatens efforts -- that threatens elections officials with felonies for assisting voters with minor issues on their ballots and they want to make it harder for people with disabilities who cannot make it into the polls to exercise their right to vote. thankfully our wisconsin governor has vetoed these measures. despite drop boxes being a safe, secure, and effective way for voters to turn in their ballots and have their votes counted, and despite previous support for their use from republicans in the state legislature, trump's big lie has pushed them to now oppose the use of drop boxes statewide. in fact, there is now a push to override guidance from the wisconsin elections commission to make drop boxes for legal ballots illegal in wisconsin. at the same time, the republicans in the state legislature are advancing a redistricting proposal that will double down on wisconsin's unprecedented level of hyper partisan gerrymandering. where politicians pick their voters instead of people choosing their elected officials. not to be outdone, "the new york times" has reported that my fellow senator from wisconsin, quote -- and this is a quote -- believes democrats cheat. this false accusation was accompanied by a proposal from this u.s. senator to change the rules in wisconsin and have the republican-controlled legislature seize control over the administration of our elections, taking this nonpartisan process out of the hands of our bipartisan, independent state elections commission. as was reported, quote, senator ron johnson, a republican, said that g.o.p. state lawmakers should unilaterally assert control over federal elections, claiming that they had the authority to do so even if tony ebers, a democrat, stood in their way, an extraordinary illegal decision struck down by a supreme court decision and a 1964 ruling by the wisconsin supreme court and quote from "the new york times. " for my part, i believe voting rights are fundamental to our democracy, and that is why i will keep on working to pass the john lewis voting rights act so we protect the right to vote. we must ensure that regardless of where you live in this country, you have the same access to the ballot box and faith that our elections are fair and safe. i yield back. mrs. blackburn: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: thank you, madam president. my democratic colleagues are continuing what started last week with spending hours trying to convince members of their own party, both here in this chamber and across the country, that they had no choice but to blow up the senate rules by firing a partisan torpedo at the filibuster. now it appears, from what we heard, that they used demeaning, shaming words, and really went about weaving quite a frightening tale about what would happen if their democratic colleagues did not cave on this issue. that tale was no more based in reality than the vile accusations of racism that they had hurled at those who opposed single-party rule. when this insulting narrative collapsed, they tried a new approach and said that this is a carr ofout for an emergency change to election law. i fully believe when someone is going to tell you who they are, you should believe them and over the past year we have watched joe biden and the democrats throw self-control out the window and leverage emergency after emergency to expand their power. joe biden signed more than a dozen executive orders in the very first hours of his presidency knowing that if he did not do this, these policies would never see the light of day. the people -- and that is the people of this country -- hadn't seen fit to give his allies in congress the majority that he needed for his agenda so he waved his pen and conjured up a mandate for himself. and now his democratic allies in the senate are prepared to do the exact same thing on behalf of a bill that would federalize elections in america, stripping away protections for the ballot box and invice president-electing -- injecting uncertainty into the voting process. now, who asked for this? no one. if the american people wanted this, they would have given the democrats the majority they needed to get it done, but they didn't and, in fact, i hear from tennesseans every day who want it to be easier to vote and harder to cheat, not the other way around. but based on what i've seen, i've come to the conclusion that what the people want no longer seems to matter to our democratic colleagues. we can daycare today's event as proof that if people don't see fit to give them power, they will come and take that power and turn the senate into a rubber-stamp they can deploy when an executive order just won't get the job done. that really frightens tennesseans because they can see what is coming down the path. open borders, court-packing, gun control, the green new deal, abortion on demand, socialized health care, speech restrictions, federalized elections and more out-of-control spending and, yes, higher inflation. we know that this is the future, that the democrats are -- this is the future that democrats are laying out for america. it is the future they see for our children and grandchildren because these policies are the policies that they have fought for since long before joe biden took office. do we really think that this attack on the senate rules will stop with an election law takeover? the american people don't think it will. tennesseans do not think that it will. as i said, when somebody shows you who they really are, you ought to believe them. and as i've said previously, this is no way to run the world's greatest deliberative body, but this is exactly how the democrats are choosing to go about trying to destroy it. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the junior senator from delaware. mr. coons: madam president, why are we here? why is this senate, dedicating this en -- senate dedicating this day on the floor? we are here to talk about two critical voting rights bills. it's our fourth try. it's our fourth try. the three previous times we have tried to get on this bill, there's been a filibuster on the motion to proceed, an obscure procedural standing that prevented us from getting to this bill. we are finally on it. and there is a challenge in this chamber and this country to explain and articulate briefly why this is such an important moment and why it justifies, in a tension between -- inattention between two of my kor are principles -- core principles to find bipartisanship as much as possible and protect foundational principles, the right to vote, and through that right to make progress towards justice and inclusion in our society that i choose the latter. we have seen, madam president, across our country in recent months and years, ever since shelby county, supreme court case, blew a hole in the center of the voting rights act in 1965, the most powerful civil rights law in our country, eroding and undermining access to the ballot. and in the months since the 2020 election, tragically we've also seen now state legislatures take up and pass laws designed to change who counts the ballot, who certifies an election. voter suppression and voter subversion, access to the ballot box and who counts the votes. every one of us here -- is here because we were elected. everyone wants to know or should want to know that we want a free and fair election in which as many americans in our state voted. why we want barriers to americans with disabilities, americans speaking different languages, americans working full time and strained by their work and family commitments, americans who are black or brown, native american, or hispanic, why would we want to have any suspicion that election to this body relied in some part on suppressing or miscounting those votes? madam president, today i'm going to speak just briefly, if i can, about how today is really about a frayed bipartisan consensus. some of my republican friends and colleagues have spoken about how we have to continue and hang on to and respect the rules of this senate, especially the 60-vote threshold to moving forward on policy changes and i long defended and respect that concern. but we are also principally here about working together to protect access to the ballot box. we heard just now from a colleague the accusation that this is a partisan federal takeover of elections, yet several of our colleagues read and reminded that it is the constitution explicitly gives to ensure federal elections are free and fair. when the first senate gathered, think about who was in the room. think about the qualifications to vote, how narrow they were, property white men. think about the arc in the change of our generation, with a huge amount of struggle, ultimately the moral question of who can vote and whose vote can be counted has slowly, through sacrifice changed. there was for 50 years, from 1965 when earned through blood and sacrifice on the edmund pettis bridge, the voting rights act was signed into law by president lyndon johnson, there was 50 years of consensus in this body that the voting rights was a sacrosanct protection. it was authorized five times, in 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992 and in 2006 unanimously. no wonder then that my friend and predecessor at this desk, our president, seems to struggle to comprehend how a republican party that included strom thurmond when he chaired the judiciary committee voted over and over and over to reauthorize the voting rights act. yet today as we debate the john lewis voting rights advancement act, we don't have a single vote across the aisle to move this forward. how did this consensus so hard won fray so quickly? in short it's because of a lie, it's because of a misrepresentation that millions of illegals are voting, famously said by our past president, but to undermine that voter fraud has been undermining our election has been adopt across our country and spread and caused a fundamental break. there's also been action by the new conservative majority on the supreme court, first in 2013 in shelby county where they took out the section 4b formula that eviscerated section 5 clear clearance to prevent against voter suppression and last year, brnovich versus d.n.c. when six conservative judges concluded that a state law in arizona that has an impact on hispanic and native american voters could stay on the books. we should make sure there is no widespread voter fraud. and on the judiciary committee my colleague from illinois and others have led hearings to confirm that there is no widespread voter fraud, as my colleague, the former secretary of state, spoke to earlier and the freedom to vote act, which is the other bill in front of us, benefited from modifications by senator manchin of west virginia, also a former secretary of state to ensure that we protections in terms of voter i.d. i will also briefly, and i know i need to conclude, respond to accusations by several of my colleagues that delaware's voting laws are not yet at the highest standard and i will say it is true my state has a long, brutal, tragic history of race relations that were not their best and our voting laws have just now come to be up to the federal standards we are hoping to make the standard for our whole country. let me ask this question. in the midst of a pandemic when state after state has adopted changes to voting ballot boxes and no-fault vote by mail and same-day registration, why would states move those back? the pandemic isn't over. in november millions of medically vulnerable americans will be looking to vote. why would we end these new provisions to provide access to the ballot box. let me make two last points and conclude. as i traveled to a dozen countries in the last years, i heard about the concerns of the health of our democracy. we must take action to protect the right to vote in this country. and last, we should not make the last casualty of this dread pandemic rolling back voting access. if i must choose between a fundamental principle learned through five congressional civil rights pilgrimages spent with john lewis that vote sg a moral question and continue to hold to a role, i will choose the former and embrace a change that is as narrow and temporary as possible and will restore debate on this floor. as i marched across the edmund pettus bridge for the last time with john lewis, he stopped and turned and said to all of us in his halting voice knowing he was in his last weeks, never give in. never give up. never become hostile. hate is too great a burden to bear. stay hopeful and keep marching. it is my hope, madam president, that our debate today, our votes today will give strength and lift and truth to the service and the life and the sacrifice of congressman lewis. thank you. mr. scott: madam president? the presiding officer: the junior senator from florida. mr. scott: madam president, unlike many of my colleagues often speak about any family here on the senate floor. as most of my colleagues know, i grew up poor and spent years of my childhood living in public housing. i never knew my biological dad and my mom and my adopted father did the best they can for our family with the very little they had. i think that a small part of my life is well known but what may not be known to many people is that my parents were democrats. sadly the democrat party my parents belonged to no longer exists. today's democrat party would be totally unrecognizable to my parents just as it is to millions of americans all across our country right now. i am a proud republican and i'm trying to expand my party. but i still believe in the benefits of our century's old two-party system. it makes our nation stronger, pushes us -- both sides, work together and leads to progress. that's why the filibuster is so important. as a rule the filibuster embodies what is most essential to the survival of our republic. it weakens the sometimes attractive nature of tribalism and bolsters the important stuff and need for consensus on crafting policy. the filibuster protects our democratic process. that's why the founders designed the senate to operate this way, as a cooling saucer that could resist the temptation of political expedience si that leads our country to wild swings and policy imposition. i make this point not only to highlight the foolishness with doing away with this rule as my democratic colleagues would like to do but draw attention to the abandonment of democratic principles we see in today's democratic party. madam president, i take no joy in saying this but today's democrat party has become the new anti-democracy party. the terrifying examples of this are all around us. packing the supreme court, pushing a radical federal takeover of state elections, ignoring our laws on border enforcement and criminal prosecution, and forcing unconstitutional vaccine mandates on american workers. none of these things give more power to the people we are elected to represent. what these dangerous ideas show is that today's democrats don't believe the people are capable of getting their right. democrats don't think they can win enough elections to control a majority in the senate. senator schumer said as much just last week. he said that if the democrats don't pass their corrupt politicians act, they will lose their majority. a party that once prided itself on being a voice for working americans like my parents is now turning to authoritarian tactics to pose its will on government by force because it does not trust the decision voters will make. and trying to pack the supreme court democrats are saying they do not trust the decisions of state legislatures, bodies comprised of the people's representatives and pushing the federal takeover of state elections democrats are showing they know their ideas are too radical to win the approval of voters so they need to leave the back door open for fraud and the delusion of votes to win votes and stay in power. that's why they want to give noncitizens, those here illegally and may be dangerous criminals the sacred right to vote. in pushing an unconstitutional vaccine mandate, democrats are making it clear they don't trust the american people to make smart decisions for themselves and their families when it comes to their own health. and the eyes of today's democrat leaders, disagreement is intolerable. there are no more opponents, only racists. they allow no room for compromise because all who disagree are evil, bigoted and backward. when the ruling class strips the people of their voice, democracy dies. when the elites in washington decide they know better than the families they're supposed to represent, our american experiment fails. madam president, it is sad day when i think about how unrecognizable today's democrat party would be to my parents. not because it has evolved or modernized but because it's abandon thed principles it once fought so hard to protect. i'm sure these words will upset many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. i hope they do and i hope it drives them to drive their party back to where it belongs and on the needs of american families. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senior senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: i'm not sure where to start having just heard my colleague from florida. i just have to say that who he is describing, i don't recognize either because i don't recognize that at all of anyone that is here. and i just want to start by thanking my democratic colleagues, first of all, for voting for the american recovery act that among many other things is helping to focus on ways to bring down the cost of food and our food supply chain to help fix it and a number of other issues that unfortunately not one colleague on the republican side voted for, not one. so we've heard a lot today about how we should be focusing on the american people. i think there would be a collective amen from our side about that. and we would love to have our colleagues join us, frankly, in that effort. but nothing is more fundamental to our democracy than preserving our freedom to vote as americans, and that's really what the debate and the votes are all about today. we know there are people willing to use violence to stop accurate, legal certifications of our national presidential election. and how do we know this? because we were here. we were here a year ago on january 6 and witnessed the violence and the death and the destruction. we also know there's a coordinated republican effort across the country to limit the freedom to vote and make it easier to intimidate and remove election officials who will -- won't do their bidding. and how do i know this? because it's happening in michigan as i speak. today's vote on the legislation in front of us is the fundamental act we must do to stop this destr -- this instruce partisan movement. we also know in order to make this happen, we have to return the senate to its original principle. the original principle of majority vote. our nation's founders had a lot of opinions about the type of country we should be and the type of government we should have. at times the discussions got heated and not just because it was summer in philadelphia, senator casey, but they were actually wearing wool at the time. so it got heated in a number of different ways. however, there was one thing they agreed on. government should be run by the will of the majority, not a nominority, not a king. they agreed on this because they saw what happened when a nation is held captive to the views of the minority. the very first constitution of the united states, the articles of confederation, was frankly a dysfunctional mess. that's why they gathered in philadelphia to try again and to get it right this time. and getting it right meant majority rule. james madison said that the majority rule is fundamental to our democracy. thomas jefferson said that the will of the majority is an all -- is in all cases to prevail. and in federalist 22, alexander hamilton wrote a lengthy description of the problems that arise when a minority can override the will of the majority. the founders didn't have an opinion on the senate filibuster because it didn't exist. it didn't exist. however, over time senators figured out they could slow down legislation through unlimited debate. and we know that at first the filibuster was rarely used, mainly by southern senators who wanted to block civil rights legislation. over time it's evolved from a procedural tool into a weapon and we all know this. and this weapon is increasingly used to stop our nation from making progress on issues that are so important to the american people, so important to our families, and crucial to the future of our country. we're here today because the most basic freedom in our democracy is the freedom to vote. and across the nation republicans are pushing legislation to take that away, including in michigan. in 2020 michigan voters clearly and resoundingly chose joe biden to be our president and kamala harris to be our vice president in the largest voter turnout in our nation's history. they won by more than 150,000 votes and that's 14 times more than donald trump's margin was in 2016. now, i very much appreciate my friend, senator thune, saying he accepted his first loss to the senate. none of us like to lose. it's not fun. but president trump should have done the same thing. but instead donald trump's campaign and his allies filed eight lawsuits in michigan, lost every single one of them. and in the only case that was appealed to the michigan supreme court, the court declined to hear the case despite having a majority of republican justices. the people in michigan voted. michigan republicans and democratic counties verified the vote. and our state on a bipartisan vote certified it. and there is no evidence of fraud that would suggest we need legislation to now restrict our voting. so why are michigan republicans trying to make it harder to vote with 39 different bills that they've introduced? well, they just don't like who michiganers voted for. because they didn't like the result, michigan republicans decided to target michigan voters. it's part of a nationwide assault on this fundamental right that my friend, the late congressman john lewis called precious, almost sacred. that's why we must pass the freedom to vote john lewis act today. i know that some folks think that any legislation we pass to protect the freedom to vote must be bipartisan to be legitimate. but when it's time to vote, we're told not one republican will join all 50 democrats, 50 democrats in voting for the freedom to vote john r. lewis act. therefore, they say the bill shouldn't pass. yet the attacks on democracy in michigan and the other states are strictly partisan. in michigan republicans are even using a loophole in our constitution to go around the governor's veto and take away people's freedom to vote without her capacity to veto the legislation. and they're doing it by a simple majority. and they're doing it with not one democratic vote, not one in michigan. but they're still doing it. republicans are making it harder for people to vote using a simple majority, yet we are told that protecting people's freedom to vote needs a super majority to do it. that makes no sense. and wait. i think i hear hamilton, jefferson, and madison ruling over -- rolling over in their graves. today we each will choose to protect every american's freedom to vote or allow those supporting the big lie to limit people's freedoms and undermine our democracy. and today we will choose to stand with our founders and our constitution as written or maintain senate procedures that are seriously broken. it's time to restore the senate to majority rule as it was intended by the founders so we can protect, protect the american people's right to vote. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the junior senator from kansas. mr. marshall: madam president, as everyone in this chamber knows, the filibuster requires a super majority, 60 votes to proceed on most issues in the senate. the filibuster is truly the essence of this deliberative body. it's what makes the senate the senate. it's what forces collaboration, long-term solution, and prevents a partisan roller coaster ride of ever-changing laws and rules every two years. the filibuster puts the brakes on hasty legislation, it helps prevent unintended consequences, which comes with most every new law. i ask america this -- do you want more laws or less laws? do we want more certainty from our government or less certainty arguably, the best speeches to keep the filibuster in place have been made by presidents and senators from across the aisle. nothing is more convincing than my democrat friends' own words. president obama, then senator obama said, in a floor speech here in 2005, and i quote, but the american people sent us here to be their voice. they understand that those voices can at times become loud and arguative, but they also hope we can disagree without being disagreeable. and at the end of the day, they expect both parties to work together to get the people's business done. what they do not expect is for one party, be it republican or democrat, to change the rules in the middle of the game so they can make all the decisions while the other party's told to sit down and keep quiet. and i'm still quoting president obama here, the american people want less partisanship in this town, but everyone in this chamber knows if the majority chooses to ends the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and put a end to democrat debate, then the fighting, the bitterness, and the gridlock will only get worse. and i end quoting president obama -- and in that same year, our current majority leader stated from this very floor, and i quote the majority leader again, we are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis. the checks and balances which have been at the core of this republic are about to be evaporatedly the nuclear option, the checks and balances which say if you get 51% of the vote you do not get your way 100% of the time. it's amazing. it's almost a temper tantrum by those on the hard right. again, still quoting the majority leader, the current majority leader, that is not becoming of the leadership of the republican side of the aisle, nor is it becoming of this republic. that is what we call abuse of power. and i end quoting the majority leader, if the current democrat majority party jams this through, they will live to rue the day, possibly as soon as next year. but for now, my colleagues across the aisle are kowtowing to the radical left base, the tail is wagging the per verbial dog. sadly, 25 of my colleagues across the aisle have flip-flopped from a position they staked out in writing just four years ago. but thank goodness that one senator who signed the letter has remained true to his word. what has happened to change the mind of these 25 senators? why is the national immediate media -- media not asking them the same question? because it would point out the hypocrisy. let me remind them all, as president biden once state thod this body, that removing the 60-vote threshold, and i again quote from president biden, quite frankly, is the ultimate act of unfairness to alter the unique responsibility of the senate and to do so by breaking the very rules of the senate. but simply, the nuclear option would transform the senate from the so-called cooling saucer of our founding fathers talked about to cool the passions of the day to a pure ma juror torrian -- ma juror torrian party. the senate is not meant to be pure majority, at its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or bill, it's about compromise and moderation. i end that quote of president biden. these men and women of noble character in their heart of hearts, do they truly believe in making this rule change that will forever alter the way our government functions? the way our founding fathers intended it to be? what will they say to the people of their state when the shoe is on the other foot, when republicans hold the majority in the senate once again and the republicans show a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, i come to the floor today in defense of what, in essence, is the very essence of our democracy and the voting rights of all americans. our