Durbin: “Across this country, Republican lawmakers and litigators are using every trick in the book to rig the rules of the game. Why? They’re afraid of losing in November.”

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, joined Senate Democrats in speaking on the floor against the Trump Administration's actions to restrict Americans' voting rights, as well as the Supreme Court's recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais, in which the Court further eviscerated the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and held that Louisiana's congressional map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Durbin began his speech by recalling the civil rights movement of the 1960's when he was a student at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

"The issue is our right to vote in this democracy and in this country. For many of us, that's never been a big question. We registered. We vote regularly… get our ballots, do our civic responsibility, push the ballot into the machine in my hometown, and get a little sticker to wear on your lapel that says, 'I voted.' It's simple. It's easy. But I can remember when voting was not so easy for a lot of people. The year was 1965, and I was a college student here at Georgetown, in Washington, D.C., and we heard about a March that was going to take place in Selma, Alabama. And a number of my fellow students and I stayed up one night and said, 'Why don't we go? Let's be a part of this,'" Durbin said. "We talked about it and said, 'Well is it safe to go down there and march?' We went back and forth and back and forth and ultimately decided not to go. Bad decision. I wish I had gone."

Durbin continued, "So when we talk about the right to vote and the Voting Rights Act, it was created here in Washington the next year by Lyndon Baines Johnson as President, because he said, once and for all, we've got to put an end to this. We have to say that every American, regardless of race, creed, or color, has an opportunity to vote, and they can never be denied for their racial composition or whatever it might be. We're back debating the same issue."

Durbin then outlined the specific provisions in Republicans' SAVE America Act that would prevent Americans from exercising their right to vote, including rejecting common IDs to register to vote and penalizing married Americans who changed their last names. Under the SAVE America Act, which requires proof of citizenship to register to vote, driver's licenses and other government-issued IDs, including a REAL ID, alone would not be sufficient. According to a nonpartisan study by the Brennan Center and the University of Maryland, more than 21 million Americans who are eligible to vote-or about one out of every ten voting age citizens-do not have documents readily available to prove their citizenship.

Durbin also recounted a 2024 Bipartisan Policy Center analysis of the conservative Heritage Foundation's Election Fraud database which found only 77 instances where noncitizens successfully cast ballots from 1999-2023, each of which faced investigation by the appropriate authorities.

"Today, the right to vote is under attack. In this country, we are witnessing a brand of politics we have never seen before. The Trump Administration has shown that they are dead set on restricting Americans' right to vote by pushing for partisan gerrymandering, restricting mail-in voting, and demanding unreasonable voter registration requirements such as those I just mentioned," Durbin said. "All Americans need to have a fair say in who represents them. But led by a President who tried stealing an election, Republicans have lost all respect for election integrity. We're now witnessing a never-before-seen political pressure campaign to rig our elections by enabling politicians to choose voters-not the other way around."

Durbin argued that in the Supreme Court's ruling in Callais, the Court's conservative supermajority has again turned its back on the promise of an equal right to vote, further gutting the Voting Rights Act.

"The impact is already being felt. Across the South, primarily in the former Confederate States, you see decisions being made to eliminate African American representatives from congressional districts," Durbin said. "As Justice Kagan wrote for the dissent, the Voting Rights Act was 'born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers.' We cannot allow that blood to have been spilled in vain. We must fight these dangerous attempts to restrict the right to vote and restore confidence in our democracy by ensuring that every eligible American has access to the ballot."

Durbin then called on his Republican colleagues to support the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would update and restore critical safeguards of the Voting Rights Act.

Durbin concluded, "Attacks on voting rights aren't happening in a vacuum. Across this country, Republican lawmakers and litigators are using every trick in the book to rig the rules of the game. Why? They're afraid of losing in November. Purging voter rolls, closing polling places, restricting mail-in voting, undermining the Voting Rights Act all serves one purpose-to limit access to the ballot box. America is better than that. Senate Democrats will continue to stand up and push back against this effort. It is about time that this became a bipartisan effort again."

Video of Durbin's remarks on the Senate floor is available here.

Audio of Durbin's remarks on the Senate floor is available here.

Footage of Durbin's remarks on the Senate floor is available here for TV Stations.

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