Durbin Reintroduces Joint Resolution To Enshrine Americans’ Right To Vote In The Constitution

WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reintroduced a joint resolution that would finally enshrine an explicit, individual right to vote in the U.S. Constitution, and protect all Americans who seek to exercise this fundamental right.

"In the words of the late John Lewis, the right to vote is 'the most powerful nonviolent tool or instrument we have in a democratic society.' When Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and then reauthorized the bill in 2006, an overwhelming bipartisan majority supported the measure," said Durbin. "But today, this presidential administration is dead set on restricting Americans' voting rights by pushing for partisan gerrymandering, restricting mail-in voting, and demanding unreasonable voter registration requirements. We need to advance additional tools to push back against current and future voter suppression efforts, and that includes providing a North Star to strive for: an explicit, individual right to vote in the Constitution."

Specifically, Durbin's joint resolution would:

• Provide every citizen, who is of legal voting age, with an affirmative fundamental right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides;
• Authorize Congress to enforce the amendment and protect the right to vote through legislation;
• Require that any efforts to limit the fundamental right to vote would be subject to the strictest level of review in the courts; and
• Ensure that states could no longer rely on Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment to prevent Americans from voting due to a criminal conviction.

In addition to Durbin, the joint resolution is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).

The resolution has been endorsed by Advancement Project, Color of Change, and the National Action Network.

Text of the joint resolution is available here.

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