Durbin Reintroduces Joint Resolution to Enshrine the Right to Vote in the Constitution

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair 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, an overwhelming bipartisan majority supported the measure. When it was reauthorized in 2006, not one Senator – Democratic or Republican – voted against the bill,” said Durbin.

“Unfortunately, that tune of bipartisanship to protect the right to vote has been abandoned by the Republican Party. Following the Supreme Court’s misguided decisions in Shelby County and Brnovich, many Republican-led states passed dozens of restrictive voting laws, all while Republicans in Congress repeatedly blocked attempts to restore the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. We need to advance additional tools to push back against widespread voter suppression, and that includes providing a North Star to strive for: an explicit, individual right to vote in the Constitution,” concluded Durbin.

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 Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).

The resolution has been endorsed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Rainbow Push Coalition, the Advancement Project, and Color of Change.

Text of the joint resolution is available here.

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