Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for A Lasting Democracy Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DELGADO. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Today, I rise in support of my amendment to the SHIELD Act, which is meant to keep foreign influences from depressing voter turnout in rural communities.

Protecting our democracy and upholding the sanctity of our elections is of critical importance.

Madam Chair, the SHIELD Act is urgently needed legislation. Americans will go to the polls in a matter of weeks, and every day, we are presented with more data that our foreign adversaries are working to influence our elections and undermine our democracy.

These destructive tactics, as we have seen in previous election cycles, continue to get more sophisticated, with outside parties now manipulating our elections through the ballot box, social media, and spreading misinformation.

My amendment fights against these tactics and requires an analysis, following each Federal election, into whether or not illicit foreign money was used to carry out disinformation or propaganda campaigns focused on depressing turnout among rural communities.

The amendment also requires a breakdown of the successes or failures of these efforts and recommendations for how we can address these tactics in future elections.

Americans in rural communities face many hurdles to exercising the right to vote, including the distance to the nearest poll. We cannot add additional hurdles of foreign disinformation and its influence on voter turnout.

There is nothing more important than protecting our democracy and ensuring every American has the ability to vote and the opportunity to make their voices heard.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. DELGADO. Madam Chair, I would note to my friend that in order for the FEC to enforce the law as you suggest, which I certainly believe they ought to, it would help if they would have the data and the information to do so and to be able to track down attempts to break the law.

This would be exactly what we are trying to do with this amendment. To speculate on who might--when, where, and how--be able to do this is a waste of time when we know at this point that we are under siege.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I look forward to working with my colleague from New York to address many issues regarding rural America. I would love to be able to sit down and find a workable solution.

The problem is, the solution that is being offered in this amendment is going to be tacked on to a bill that is never going to become law. So we are either going to talk about amendments that are going to remain talking points or we can sit down together and work in a bipartisan fashion to get a law passed that is going to have the impact that my colleague from New York and I want it to have.

Let's sit down, without having to write the rules that the FEC would have to follow. Let's work together and send a letter to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Let's send a letter to the Brennan Center and see if they can study it.

Why do we have to wait so long? This is a much easier way to address the problem that I think he and I agree ought to be addressed. Let's do that.

When this bill passes on a partisan rollcall today and goes nowhere when it moves into the Senate, let's commit to working together to see what we can do to get this done because rural America is too important to be affected by partisanship here in Washington, D.C.

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Mr. DELGADO. Madam Chair, I would be more than happy to work with my colleague to do whatever we can to deal with protecting our elections and ensuring that they remain free and fair.

As I am sure the gentleman understands, representing a rural district, too many folks in our communities are being left behind, and they should not be left behind in the least bit when it comes to the sanctity of our elections.

While we might be in a position where, unfortunately, partisanship gets in the way of these issues, I will note that to simply say these things won't become law is part of the problem. I think it is also important to deconstruct why these things are not making their way into law in the first place.

When people become overly partisan in this environment, we are at an impasse, unfortunately. I am here to work beyond that.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, again, I agree with my colleague. This place becomes overly partisan. This entire process, this bill, with zero hearings in the House Administration Committee before it was forced to markup through our committee, without us to have a chance to ask experts what they can and cannot do to address many of the problems that my colleague from New York actually offers solutions for, that is the problem of partisanship.

We can't just blame the Senate. I was told by many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle when we were in the majority, ``So what if the Senate is not going to pass it? We ought to work together in the House.'' I agreed then, and I agree now. We ought to find solutions.

Unfortunately, partisanship has overtaken this process. The unfortunate result of that is that good ideas like the one my colleague has are going to stop in their tracks when this amendment passes on a partisan rollcall vote for this amendment, and then it is not going to be signed into law.

Again, I can't wait to work with my colleague on finding a way to get this information into the right hands and have those who can study it without having to go through a dysfunctional Federal Election Commission and also have them study why we had historic turnout not just in urban America but in rural America during the 2018 midterms. Let's talk about what we have done right to make sure that voters have a chance to get to the polls at historic turnout numbers like we saw during the 2018 election cycle, which allowed many of my colleagues to get elected to this institution.

Madam Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment. I look forward to working with my colleague in the future to address the problem of access and voter access in rural America, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. DELGADO. Madam Chair, I would like to note, to bring the discussion back full circle, when my friend says that the FEC is dysfunctional but began this conversation saying that it has the responsibility to enforce election laws, those two points don't really go hand in hand.

I think it is important that if we are going to make the FEC able and capable of enforcing the laws that we know are critical to protecting our democracy, then we should operate on the assumption of how we could make the FEC as functional as possible and give the FEC data and information to achieve its stated purpose.

I thank Chairwoman Lofgren for her leadership on this issue and urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to put the protection of our democracy over partisan division and pass both my amendment and the underlying bill.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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