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Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before he leaves, I want to thank my colleague from Massachusetts. We have worked often together on these democracy issues, and I look forward to doing that in the days ahead.

I also want to commend Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota because she has been our point person on the Rules Committee, which is central to this whole debate. I think we all understand what is at stake. That is what my colleagues have been outlining. And I think we have been very fortunate to have Senator Klobuchar at the helm. She and I have worked together on one of the issues I am going to talk about, vote by mail, but I just want people to understand how valuable she has been.

Mr. President and colleagues, a year ago today, not far from where we stand this afternoon, domestic terrorists tried to beat our democracy to the ground. They might have been successful were it not for the police officers who defended our democracy as they were viciously attacked and beaten. Before anything else is said, in my view, by an elected official, we need to salute these officers and all those who work day in and day out alongside them here in the Capitol. For their courage, we ought to be internally grateful.

The insurrection on January 6 was instigated by the former President, who wanted to undo the results of a democratic election. Let's also understand that, unfortunately, inciting the mob wasn't the end of it. Donald Trump didn't exactly walk quietly off into the sunset after the Biden inauguration. The effort to undermine our democracy, to end free and fair elections in America, goes on as we speak.

Support for the Big Lie is essentially unchanged from where it was a year ago. An awful lot of Republicans who said after January 6 that they were done with the former President have cozied back up to him just 12 months later. The only reason the mob is not here today is Donald Trump didn't summon them back.

Now, in my view, it is our job to ensure that another attack like this, or by any other means, never succeeds. We will have more to say about those issues in the days ahead.

In my view, protecting the vote has got to be step one in protecting democracy. A guiding principle for the Senate must be that while politics may guide a citizen's vote, it should never determine whether they are allowed to vote. To act otherwise would undermine the very foundations of a representative democracy, empowering voters with a system built on integrity and accountability, a system that promotes participation rather than discourages it, a system with a real history of bipartisanship.

I say to the Presiding Officer and colleagues, that is the kind we have in my home State of Oregon. Oregon believes so strongly in the right to vote that everybody gets a ballot sent straight to their home.

I am honored to say that I was the first U.S. Senator elected in an all vote-by-mail election. Back then, it was Oregon Republicans who were pushing to expand vote-by-mail. A Democratic Governor even vetoed a vote-by-mail bill in 1995. Right after my election, the Oregon Republicans flipped back, and vote-by-mail was suddenly, oh, so bad.

Everything flipped a few months later, when my friend, Gordon Smith, a Republican from eastern Oregon, became the second U.S. Senator to be elected by mail. At this point, Oregon voters said: We have just had it with everybody looking for some kind of partisan slant here. We just think vote-by-mail is a really terrific idea. They went out to vote on a ballot measure, and they chose to make Oregon's elections all vote- by-mail, passing it with 70 percent of the vote in 1998.

This, in my view, was the culmination of a process that started 40 years ago with some local elections in Linn County, a small county in the western part of our State. It grew and grew from there. Election officials learned that when you let people vote at home, participation goes up, and the costs go down.

One of the biggest defenders of Oregon's vote-at-home system was the late Dennis Richardson. He was our secretary of state. And by his characterization, he was about as conservative--a Republican as you could get.

But when the Trump era came along and people criticized our elections and said, ``Oh, there is all this fraud,'' spouting lies about it, the late Dennis Richardson stood up and said: I am a conservative Republican. They are wrong. They are wrong in what they are saying about Oregon.

He even wrote to Donald Trump in 2017: ``We are confident that voter fraud in last November's election did not occur in Oregon.''

Every election now, young Oregonians watch their parents voting around their kitchen table, and it is a real inspiration to the next generation to make sure they are committed voters. Voting at home gives you the opportunity to be more informed. If there is a particular measure, initiative, or a race that you haven't researched, you get time to look into the options.

When you are done, your ballot goes into a security envelope, you sign the outside, and off it goes. For me, that is when I head from our home in Southeast Portland to the Sellwood branch of the Multnomah County Public Library, drop my ballot in the collection box, and head home--no long lines, no glitchy touchscreen systems, just hassle-free voting.

A recent analysis in the Election Law Journal said that of all 50 States, voting is easiest in Oregon. And Senator Klobuchar, I have heard colleagues go back and forth to say who is No. 1 in participation and who is No. 1 in all of these aspects. And I think, like a number of other States, we are all kind of competing for the highest turnout rates. We get some of the highest in the country. We have been a leader in terms of increasing turnout among Black and Latino voters. Voter registration is automatic. It is as easy as a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

For myself--and Senator Klobuchar and I have talked about this so often over the years--I have been proposing legislation to have universal at-home voting since 2002. That is what my Vote at Home Act would do. It would give every American the right to vote the Oregon way, the vote that my neighbors and I can do. I will say here on the Senate floor that I guarantee that, if you do it the Oregon way, it will be a nationwide hit immediately.

Letting people vote at home is also the best defense against some of the really horrendous methods of suppressing the vote; for example, what we have seen over the last few years with State and local governments shutting polling places, particularly ones that serve Black and Latino voters--what unforgivable actions.

These days, in some areas, Republicans are making it illegal to give food and water to people standing in line to vote. It shouldn't be a test of physical stamina to be able to vote. Nobody should have to wonder if they will be able to vote if they step out of line to go to a bathroom. Nobody should have to sacrifice an entire day to participate in this incredible, incredible democratic system that is America.

That is why I proposed the People Over Long Lines Act, called the POLL Act. The bill says State governments have to guarantee that everybody who votes in person can do so within 30 minutes. Anybody who is forced to wait longer has a legal action they can bring. If they sue and win, it is 50 bucks for waiting longer than 30 minutes and 50 bucks more for every hour after that.

A free bit of advice to States: Get ready. Make sure people don't have to wait in lines. One of the best ways to make sure they don't have to wait in lines is to let them vote at home.

It is not just Oregon, by the way, that votes by mail. And I think, Senator Klobuchar, we heard some of our colleagues talk about their States and voting by mail. If you need another example, let's think about the U.S. Armed Forces. Most servicemembers and their families vote by mail in every election. All of the people who wear the uniform of the United States can vote by mail in every Federal election. It has been that way for decades.

So the bottom line is that we think it is time to get the Oregon system into every nook and cranny in America. We feel that way because it works. It raises voter participation, it lowers the cost of running elections, it helps voters be more informed, and it is safe and secure. And if you are resisting safe and efficient elections with higher voter turnout, then you are suppressing democracy in America.

My home State of Oregon shows the way to preserve America.

I am going to close my remarks, but I think we will have Senator Klobuchar speak for all of us here in a moment. But, in my closing, I want to touch just for a moment on my family that I am so proud of.

My German family fled their homeland, a place where they were deeply rooted in that nation's society, as my grandfather was a Member of Parliament and served on the Berlin city council.

My family was forced, as Jews, to flee the fascists who had taken over their democracy. They fled to America as the last remaining beacon of freedom. With that freedom, my dad chose to serve in our Army, which fought against German fascism, and my dad has been recognized for his unique contributions.

We were so thrilled, for example, to have the Senators from Maryland talk about the Ritchie Boys. My dad was one of the Ritchie Boys, a German kid who taught himself English so he could be out there fighting the Nazis. And I remember the good work of the Senators from Maryland and how thrilled our family was about that.

My dad was about the greatest patriot around. He felt he was so lucky to be an American, to be in our Army, to stand up for American values. And my final remark here today is about my dad. If my dad were alive today, he would tell us: Senators, make sure that the light in America's beacon of freedom never goes out.

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