CSPAN - LIVE U.S. House of Representatives
Aired: 2026-03-18
Duration: 01:25:59


=== Saving Democracy From The SAVE Act (11:11) ===

[00:00:00]  Republicans shut down and sign the discharge petition.
[00:00:04]  God bless you.
[00:00:05]  God bless the United States of America.
[00:00:21]  Earlier today, the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA director John Radcliffe were on Capitol Hill to testify on global threats.
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[00:02:12]  Senate Democrats and voting rights advocates rallied against the Safe America Act, the Republican Voter ID and Citizenship Requirements Bill.
[00:02:21]  At the time of this event, the bill was being debated in the Senate.
[00:02:24]  The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Declaration for American Democracy hosted this rally on Capitol Hill.
[00:02:42]  Okay, perfect.
[00:02:42]  All right, well, let's get started.
[00:02:44]  Okay.
[00:02:46]  Good morning.
[00:02:48]  Can folks hear me?
[00:02:50]  Awesome.
[00:02:51]  Well, thank you for being here.
[00:02:53]  We are here today because on the other side of those walls, senators are debating a monstrosity of a bill called the SAVE Act.
[00:03:00]  Now, the SAVE Act, you might say, huh, is that about saving the American people from skyrocketing costs of gas and groceries?
[00:03:07]  Or maybe it's about saving people from the health care crisis that some of those same senators have created.
[00:03:13]  Or I know maybe it's about saving us from the unaccountable rogue bands of ICE agents who are roaming our streets and terrorizing everyday Americans.
[00:03:22]  Well, those are all reasonable hypotheses, and if you guessed yes on any of those, you would be forgiven for being wildly incorrect.
[00:03:29]  No, no.
[00:03:30]  Instead of dealing with the graphing, grappling with the extreme problems and crises facing our nation today, some lawmakers in Washington are pushing a bill that would make it harder for tens of millions of U.S. citizens to vote.
[00:03:42]  A bill that would force states to turn over sensitive voter roll data to the Department of Homeland Security with no guardrails on its use or protections for our privacy.
[00:03:51]  A bill that would upend registration and voting as we know it.
[00:03:55]  That, that is the SAVE Act that they're debating in there right now.
[00:03:59]  I'm Laura Williamson.
[00:04:00]  I'm with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[00:04:01]  We are a civil rights organization working for racial justice, economic prosperity, and multiracial democracy in the deep south, which means we are no stranger to attacks on the freedom to vote.
[00:04:11]  But this is different.
[00:04:12]  If this SAVE Act becomes law, this will be the first time that Congress has legislated to take away the freedom to vote ever, as far as I know.
[00:04:20]  Which is why the SPLC is proud to be here, standing shoulder to shoulder with this incredible group of freedom fighters you're about to hear from and a whole coalition of people as we say no to the trick that is the SAVE Act.
[00:04:33]  So we are privileged today to be joined by a number of senators, including those who are leading the opposition inside that building to defeat this SAVE Act and those who have pledged to hold already made impassioned speeches and pledge to hold the floor as long as it takes to defeat this thing.
[00:04:47]  And we are grateful to be joined by everyday American voters who stand to lose their freedom to vote if this thing passes, who have left their homes and traveled across the country to say no to the SAVE Act, to share their stories.
[00:04:58]  And we are glad to be joined by a powerful cohort of civil rights leaders and advocates who fight day in and day out to protect our freedom to vote.
[00:05:06]  And mark my words, this is a fight we will win.
[00:05:08]  We have been defending against this thing for the past 15 months, and you better believe we are not about to see it become law.
[00:05:15]  It may be cold out here today, but we are fired up and ready to go to stop the SAVE Act.
[00:05:21]  And to tell us how we're going to do that, I am delighted to welcome our first speaker, the great senior senator from California, the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, somebody who's been fighting for voting rights since he set foot in the Senate and who knows a thing or two about election law.
[00:05:38]  Please join me in welcoming Ranking Member Senator Alex Padilla.
[00:05:45]  Thank you.
[00:05:46]  Thank you, Laura.
[00:05:46]  Good morning, everybody.
[00:05:49]  Who's ready to fight for our democracy?
[00:05:52]  Who's ready to fight for our democracy?
[00:05:56]  As long as it takes all day, all night, week in, week out, we will kill this bill.
[00:06:02]  That's right!
[00:06:04]  Because make no mistake, it's not just voting rights that are on the line.
[00:06:09]  Our democracy is on the line, our fundamental right to vote, which is way too sacred for us to just stand by.
[00:06:18]  Now, we know they try to label this the SAVE Act to try to make it sound good.
[00:06:23]  When they describe it, they say, Well, it's just a voter ID bill.
[00:06:27]  Isn't that kind of popular in the American public?
[00:06:29]  This is not a voter ID bill, it's a bait and switch bill.
[00:06:34]  Because while they call it a voter ID bill, the language of the bill says, you know, your driver's license, that's not good enough to get you into the polling place.
[00:06:45]  You gotta have a passport.
[00:06:47]  Half of Americans don't have a passport.
[00:06:50]  Oh, but that's okay.
[00:06:51]  If you don't have a passport, just bring your original birth certificate.
[00:06:54]  So now I gotta crawl through my garage or call my parents, hoping somebody knows where it is.
[00:07:00]  It's taking us backwards in terms of voting rights and access to the ballot.
[00:07:06]  A lot of states offer online voter registration.
[00:07:10]  That would be gone.
[00:07:11]  A lot of states allow for you to mail in your voter registration card.
[00:07:15]  That option, too, gone.
[00:07:18]  Voter registration drives in communities and on college campuses, gone.
[00:07:25]  No more registering at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
[00:07:28]  And this one in particular is offensive because in 1993, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act on a bipartisan basis to integrate voter registration opportunities when people were applying for or renewing their driver's license at the DMV.
[00:07:45]  This Republican majority wants to take us backwards.
[00:07:50]  Are we going to let that happen?
[00:07:52]  No!
[00:07:52]  We're not going to let that happen.
[00:07:55]  Let me just sort of end with this because I'm getting ready for another floor speech and another mining potential Republican parliamentary shenanigans all day today.
[00:08:05]  Let me end with this contrast.
[00:08:09]  61 years ago, not today, but this week, President Lyndon Johnson came to the Capitol and addressed a joint session of Congress in the wake of Bloody Sunday and pushed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act.
[00:08:31]  61 years later, Donald Trump and this Republican majority want to take us backwards.
[00:08:38]  We're not going to let that happen.
[00:08:41]  So thank you for doing your part.
[00:08:43]  We're going to keep calling it remember.
[00:08:45]  We're going to keep sitting in that gallery, keeping an eye, making sure that they know we're watching, that we know that the American people are watching.
[00:08:53]  We should get off the Save Act, put it to bed, and get back to the business of the people, addressing high costs, addressing this war with Iran that American people are paying the price for.
[00:09:05]  Congress did not authorize this, but we're paying the price of the pump in so many ways.
[00:09:10]  Let's get back to the real work of the American people.
[00:09:12]  Thank you very much.
[00:09:17]  Thank you, thank you, Senator Padilla.
[00:09:19]  One more round of applause for one of our champions, our leaders in the Senate and our host here today.
[00:09:24]  So I am delighted now to bring up a longtime leader in the struggle for our fundamental rights and freedoms, someone you may have seen on TV, you've definitely seen in the trenches, the CEO and president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Maya Wiley.
[00:09:42]  All right, I want to give it up one more time for our proud Senator Padilla.
[00:09:48]  Proud.
[00:09:49]  Because we are standing here as citizens.
[00:09:54]  And citizens is a word that is supposed to have meaning.
[00:09:58]  And as the proud leader of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which is the nation's oldest and largest, we were part of Bloody Sunday.
[00:10:10]  These leaders and organizations are the legacy of Bloody Sunday.
[00:10:14]  And every single time we have fought to ensure that every single citizen, whether you're named Jamal or Jeremy, whether you're named Mary or Maria, you get to be that citizen and not denied for someone who wants to be a dictator.
[00:10:36]  So let me just say this.
[00:10:37]  We are standing on what is called the Senate swamp.
[00:10:43]  It is the Senate swamp until we fill it in and make it a pool that does not discriminate on the basis of color.
[00:10:52]  And this is a coalition that knows how to do this, y'all.
[00:10:57]  This is a legacy that is also leading into a future that says the next 250 years of this country, we will perfect this union.
[00:11:08]  So I'm going to ask you this.

=== Real People Facing Voter ID Laws (04:19) ===

[00:11:11]  Tell me what democracy looks like.
[00:11:14]  This is what democracy looks like.
[00:11:16]  Tell me what democracy looks like.
[00:11:19]  This is what democracy looks like.
[00:11:21]  Tell me what the future looks like.
[00:11:24]  This is what the future looks like.
[00:11:26]  We are diverse.
[00:11:28]  We are equitable.
[00:11:29]  We are inclusive.
[00:11:31]  We are one country and nobody's going to take it from us.
[00:11:37]  Thank you, thank you, Maya.
[00:11:39]  President Maya, we could just leave it right there, but we won't because we have an incredible, incredible lineup of speakers next.
[00:11:45]  Erin?
[00:11:49]  Okay, I am delighted to welcome our next speaker, a leader who is on the front lines of the struggle for voting rights, talking day in and day out with voters in the great state of Georgia, the Vote Riders Georgia State Director, the Reverend Dr. Monica Spencer.
[00:12:05]  Welcome.
[00:12:08]  Good morning, everyone.
[00:12:11]  I am Monica Spencer, the Georgia State Director for Vote Riders, a nonpartisan, nonprofit, pro-voter organization with a simple but powerful mission, and that's to eliminate ID barriers to the ballot box.
[00:12:27]  Our democracy is worth fighting for, and Vote Riders works to restore and strengthen it.
[00:12:33]  And we do this by educating voters about confusing voter ID laws and assisting them with obtaining state IDs and underlying documents, documents that help improve their lives.
[00:12:46]  Our work addresses the barriers to voting created by voter ID and proof of citizenship laws.
[00:12:54]  As an ordained minister, I am called to this work of justice.
[00:12:59]  I am called to this work of faith.
[00:13:02]  Every day I work with Georgia citizens who have been disenfranchised from the electoral process.
[00:13:09]  And I'm here today to share with you some stories about how everyday people, people like you and I, are impacted by voter ID laws like the Save America Act.
[00:13:21]  I work in rural Georgia where I assisted Mr. Stephen in getting a birth record.
[00:13:26]  Born at home by a midwife, he did not have a birth certificate and was unable to get an ID to vote.
[00:13:34]  I feel the level of frustration that Ms. Tina felt when she relocated to Georgia and she sought to get a Georgia ID and literally made five trips to the driver's services before she called us to help her navigate the process.
[00:13:52]  And after helping her to get her out-of-state birth certificate, her marriage certificate, only then, and a motor vehicle record, she was registered and she voted.
[00:14:03]  A few months ago, Vote Riders assisted Mr. Ronnie with getting transportation to the driver's services location over 100 miles away.
[00:14:15]  In his rural community, access to ride chairs and public transportation are not options.
[00:14:21]  The fact of the matter is that a citizen's humanity is encased in a plastic state ID card or a paper document.
[00:14:32]  And without it, individuals are devalued.
[00:14:34]  They're discriminated against.
[00:14:37]  And in the case of the Save America Act and other voter ID laws, would be prevented from voting.
[00:14:43]  As I close, you will hear about the Save America Act.
[00:14:47]  You will hear the statistics.
[00:14:49]  You will hear the politics around it.
[00:14:51]  But please hear this.
[00:14:54]  Hear their names, Stephen and Keisha, Tony, Ronnie, and Sarah.
[00:15:01]  Hear their stories, stories of discrimination, stories of challenge, and stories of confusion.
[00:15:09]  And then remember, if we are truly a country where every eligible citizen has the right to vote, the goal of advocates and our lawmakers should not be to suppress citizens' votes or their access to the ballot, but to support them.
[00:15:26]  That is who America is.
[00:15:28]  That is what America does.

=== Fighting Jim Crow With Tooth And Nail (15:52) ===

[00:15:30]  That is who we are.
[00:15:32]  For we are people of faith, and we are people of non-faith, but we are a people who care.
[00:15:40]  And that is who we are.
[00:15:41]  Thank you.
[00:15:47]  Thank you so much, Reverend Dr. Spencer, for those words.
[00:15:50]  We are here because this is about real people who stand to lose their freedom to vote.
[00:15:55]  We have another distinguished senator who's been leading the opposition inside the building.
[00:15:59]  We are delighted to welcome up this longtime leader on voting rights in the Senate, in the House, and beyond.
[00:16:05]  The distinguished senator from New Mexico, Senator Ben Ray Lujan.
[00:16:08]  Thank you for being here.
[00:16:13]  Good morning, everyone.
[00:16:15]  Yeah, they don't quite have the Marco Rubio gap, but, you know.
[00:16:21]  Reverend, thank you for speaking with clarity.
[00:16:26]  You know, the seriousness of this moment is one I hope that we all take a moment to reflect on.
[00:16:37]  And the reason I say that is, you know, it wasn't long ago that a dear friend of ours, a mentor of mine, John Lewis, taught us about the importance of speaking up and standing up and the lessons that he learned as a young man.
[00:17:00]  Power of a book and an apple to prepare for whatever may meet you when you're creating good trouble.
[00:17:12]  There's a little something I've been wearing on my wrist for a long time that reminds me of the good trouble that we need to be making.
[00:17:21]  I was proud to serve and march and fight back and learn, sit on the floor, sit in with John Lewis.
[00:17:28]  Now, the so-called legislation that my Republican colleagues are calling the Save Act, this is about Republicans saving their political behinds, is all that it is.
[00:17:41]  Republicans know right now, those politicians across the country, that they can't win, so they're trying to cheat.
[00:17:49]  They're trying to change the rules.
[00:17:50]  They're trying to throw 69 million off the voter rolls because they may have changed their last name.
[00:17:57]  That's their crime.
[00:18:00]  And what about my Native American brothers and sisters?
[00:18:03]  All my brothers and sisters from the First Nations that I'm proud to represent across New Mexico, who may have been born in their home generationally with other family members, they didn't have a birth certificate.
[00:18:17]  So they're going to get told, sorry, you can't vote anymore.
[00:18:20]  My American brothers and sisters from the First Nations, the First Americans, are going to get treated that way?
[00:18:27]  And look, Donald Trump, like President Obama said, don't boo vote.
[00:18:39]  President Trump said it out loud last week.
[00:18:43]  President Trump told Republicans when they were meeting behind closed doors, quote, the SAVE Act will guarantee Republicans win the midterms and ensure they do not lose an election for 50 years.
[00:18:57]  Well, it's the first time I think Donald Trump's been honest.
[00:19:04]  I appreciate him saying what he said.
[00:19:07]  This voter suppression bill is only that, taking away vote by mail.
[00:19:13]  I hope my Republican colleagues from states that voted for Donald Trump, where vote by mail is popular, have the courage and the backbone to stand up and say no to this nonsense because their constituents are going to push back.
[00:19:27]  The notion that tribal IDs will also be rejected.
[00:19:33]  More than one to four black and Latino adult citizens that do not have a driver's license that do not reflect their current name or address.
[00:19:44]  It's one lie after another that is being peddled right now on this floor.
[00:19:48]  And why are Republicans doing something about the high cost of gas and food and everything else that is hitting the American people?
[00:19:55]  If they have the time to spend on this piece of legislation, they should do something to make it more affordable for the American people.
[00:20:03]  Thank you for standing strong.
[00:20:05]  Do not be silent.
[00:20:06]  Let's not forget the call and the words and the charge of the great John Lewis.
[00:20:11]  Make good trouble, everybody.
[00:20:17]  Thank you, thank you, Senator Luhan, especially for your leadership on Native American voting rights.
[00:20:22]  Now I am thrilled to bring up another senator, a senator whose leadership we have to thank for the fact that even this, even the fact that this silly debate is going on, that half of the U.S. Senate stands in full-throated opposition to the SAVE Act.
[00:20:37]  A leader who has pledged to do everything he can to stop this rotten bill and to ensure that it remains dead on arrival.
[00:20:44]  Please join me in giving a warm welcome to the leader, Senator Chuck Schumer.
[00:20:51]  Thank you and thank you, everyone here.
[00:20:54]  It's cold outside, but we are firing in our determination to beat this awful, despicable, un-American bill.
[00:21:06]  You know, look what's going on.
[00:21:08]  War, an evil war, is consuming the Middle East.
[00:21:12]  Prices are skyrocketing everywhere, from gas to groceries.
[00:21:17]  Job growth in America is weakening as Trump tanks our economy.
[00:21:22]  These are all things that bother average Americans.
[00:21:25]  And what is Trump and the MAGA Republicans focused on?
[00:21:29]  Voter suppression.
[00:21:31]  Instead of doing something about the real problems, they're trying to fix the election because they know, they know damn well that if the election were held today, they would lose.
[00:21:46]  No question about it.
[00:21:48]  And we would take back the Senate.
[00:21:53]  And so the American people are tired of this administration already.
[00:22:00]  They are tired of endless wars, tired of increased costs, tired of chaos, tired of the corruption.
[00:22:07]  This is the most corrupt administration we have ever seen in America.
[00:22:11]  And the MAGA Republicans know it.
[00:22:13]  They know it.
[00:22:15]  And so they're so unpopular that the only way they can win in November is kick millions of people, people they don't like, off the voting rolls.
[00:22:26]  They are trying to dupe us, folks.
[00:22:29]  They are trying to dupe America.
[00:22:31]  They say, oh, this is just a voter ID law.
[00:22:34]  Bullshit.
[00:22:36]  It is not a voter ID law.
[00:22:40]  It is a law that will kick millions of Americans off the voting rolls.
[00:22:48]  We know what happened.
[00:22:49]  Their bill, they had to add this in, demands that every state turn over the voting rolls to the Department of Homeland Security.
[00:22:58]  And we've had enough of them on other issues, on other issues.
[00:23:04]  And once they get that, there is an algorithm put in by Musk and Doge that would kick tens of millions of people off the rolls.
[00:23:15]  They say they want to kick people who are not citizens, who are immigrants off the rolls, but there's no evidence of any of that.
[00:23:24]  It will kick millions of American citizens off the rolls.
[00:23:30]  And they don't even require you be told.
[00:23:34]  So, if you voted at the same voting place and used the same voter ID year after year after year, you're going to show up in November if this law passes, and it won't.
[00:23:46]  If this law passes, and they'll say, Ms. Jones, Mr. Smith, sorry, you're no longer on the voting rolls.
[00:23:53]  You said, but no one told me that.
[00:23:56]  And then there'll be no way for you to vote.
[00:24:00]  So I have called this act over and over again Jim Crow 2.0.
[00:24:10]  And they hate it.
[00:24:12]  I've gotten 50 million right-wing attacks on my email because I said it.
[00:24:19]  And you know why they attack it?
[00:24:20]  Because they know it's the truth.
[00:24:22]  It is Jim Crow 2.0, but it's spread across the whole country, not just regionalized.
[00:24:30]  No driver, that you can't use a driver's license to register.
[00:24:35]  You're a soldier, and you've risked your life, your country, you can't use your military ID.
[00:24:42]  They will make it will be easier in most states to buy an AR-15 assault weapon than register to vote under their law.
[00:24:52]  Can you believe that?
[00:24:55]  So we're fighting this tooth and nail.
[00:24:57]  We are fighting this tooth and nail.
[00:25:00]  It is so despicable.
[00:25:02]  It is so outrageous.
[00:25:05]  And we need your help not only to stand here, but to let all America know what this really is.
[00:25:12]  Because they're afraid to let America know what it really is, because America will hate it.
[00:25:16]  It's un-American.
[00:25:18]  It's against, it's taking 50 step years, it's taking 50 years of steps back instead of moving us forward.
[00:25:28]  No more registering online.
[00:25:30]  No more registering at churches or on college campuses.
[00:25:35]  It is just outrageous.
[00:25:38]  And so we know how bad this will be for our democracy.
[00:25:41]  We know why they're doing it.
[00:25:43]  I want to pledge to you that as minority leader of the Senate, my caucus and I, including Senators LBR, sometimes I say LBJ, he did a lot for voting rights, and so is she.
[00:26:00]  Senator Kim, Senator Padilla, who is already here, Senator Lujan, all of us are united and banding together.
[00:26:08]  No matter how late, we have to stay up.
[00:26:11]  Now, Madah, days, weeks, weekends, months, we have to be on the floor of the Senate.
[00:26:17]  We will not let this evil legislation pass.
[00:26:25]  Thank you, everybody.
[00:26:27]  No, Jim Crow, 2.0.
[00:26:29]  2.0.
[00:26:31]  No, Jim Crow 2.0.
[00:26:34]  No, Jim Crow 2.0.
[00:26:37]  All right.
[00:26:40]  Thank you, Senator.
[00:26:41]  Thank you, thank you, thank you.
[00:26:42]  All right, y'all heard it here.
[00:26:44]  That is our charge.
[00:26:45]  And that is the charge of the U.S. senators who are opposing this monstrous FAVAC.
[00:26:49]  Thank you, thank you, thank you.
[00:26:50]  And I am delighted to bring up our next speaker, who's also in that number, someone who's worked and fought for working people for years and who has wasted no time since arriving in the Senate, working for the people of the great state of Delaware and the nation and already distinguished herself as a leader on voting rights.
[00:27:05]  Please join me in welcoming the distinguished senator from Delaware, Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester.
[00:27:14]  Thank you.
[00:27:14]  Good morning, everyone.
[00:27:16]  Good morning.
[00:27:17]  I'm going to say it's a good morning because we are all out here saying we will not go back and we are defending our democracy.
[00:27:25]  So good morning.
[00:27:27]  Good morning.
[00:27:28]  Now, I have to tell you, coming here, I was thinking to myself, costs are high.
[00:27:34]  Our Republican colleagues have already cut Medicaid, Medicare.
[00:27:38]  People don't know how they're going to be able to afford energy.
[00:27:42]  We're in the middle of a war that they can't even get straight while we're in it and don't have a way to get out of it.
[00:27:50]  And we are now here faced with defending our democracy.
[00:27:56]  So I start off with a question.
[00:27:58]  What is the Save America Act really saving us from?
[00:28:03]  What is it saving us from?
[00:28:04]  Voters.
[00:28:05]  Thank you.
[00:28:08]  Is it saving young people who are on college campuses?
[00:28:11]  No.
[00:28:13]  Is it saving people of color?
[00:28:15]  No.
[00:28:16]  Is it saving somebody who lives in a rural community that would have to travel hours just to vote?
[00:28:22]  No.
[00:28:23]  Is it saving people in tribal communities?
[00:28:28]  Is it saving the 69 million women who have changed their names?
[00:28:33]  No.
[00:28:34]  And I know it for sure because I've changed my name.
[00:28:37]  I've been Lisa Blunt, Lisa Blunt Bradley, Lisa Blunt Rochester.
[00:28:41]  I've been married, divorced, widowed.
[00:28:45]  69 million women are going to be affected by this.
[00:28:50]  And so I will tell you, I think it's probably the answer that the president gave himself.
[00:28:56]  They want to make sure that the right people vote.
[00:29:00]  So I guess all of us aren't the right people.
[00:29:05]  I guess we're not.
[00:29:06]  I brought with me something that I carried on the day that I was sworn into the House of Representatives when I was elected in 2016.
[00:29:14]  And I carried it with me on the day that I was sworn in as a United States Senator.
[00:29:19]  And I also carried it with me when I was trapped up in the gallery on January 6th.
[00:29:24]  And all I could think to do was pray.
[00:29:27]  This document allowed my great-great-great-grandfather, who had been enslaved in Georgia, to have the right to vote.
[00:29:35]  We took this and turned it into a scarf.
[00:29:38]  It is the Returns of Qualified Voters and Reconstruction Oath from 1867.
[00:29:46]  This is my proof of what we've been through.
[00:29:50]  This is our proof.
[00:29:52]  This is also our inspiration.
[00:29:55]  Also our inspiration.
[00:29:58]  I got to travel with John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge two times.
[00:30:04]  And even as I thought about this moment, I recognized that while we wish we weren't in it, while we don't know why we're in it, I do know we were made for it.
[00:30:18]  And so I came today to tell you that just like the leader said that he calls it Jim Crow 2.0, I call it Jim Crow 2.0.
[00:30:30]  So we're going to stay up all day, all night, however long it takes to make sure that we truly save America from people who are trying to take us back.
[00:30:42]  Because guess what?
[00:30:43]  We're not going back.
[00:30:45]  We're not going back.
[00:30:46]  And we recognize this is about power, but who does power belong to?
[00:30:51]  Who does power belong to?
[00:30:52]  The people.
[00:30:53]  Who does power belong to?
[00:30:55]  The people.
[00:30:56]  Let's keep it.
[00:31:01]  Thank you.
[00:31:02]  Thank you.
[00:31:02]  One more time for Senator Blunt Rochester.
[00:31:06]  All right.
[00:31:07]  And now I am delighted to bring up another senator who is new to the Senate but not to public service, who spent many, many years as a congressman and as a civil servant, and who again, just like Senator Blunt Rochester, has already distinguished himself as a leader on voting rights and many other issues.

=== Who Does Power Belong To (08:39) ===

[00:31:23]  We are delighted to have you, Senator Andy Kim from the great state of New Jersey.
[00:31:26]  Thank you for being here.
[00:31:29]  Good morning, everyone.
[00:31:32]  We are here right now in front of the Capitol because these are dangerous times.
[00:31:38]  Am I right?
[00:31:39]  These are moments that none of us ever imagined we would have to see during our lifetimes.
[00:31:43]  We had thought we had left this in the past, but what we learned is you don't take things for granted in this country.
[00:31:49]  We can never let our vigilance down.
[00:31:52]  I stand here not just as a United States senator, but as a father of an eight-year-old and a ten-year-old, two boys.
[00:31:58]  And I'll tell you, I worry deeply about what kind of America my boys are growing up in when I see all the chaos and the craziness that's out there right now.
[00:32:07]  But I will tell you, I will do everything I humanly can as a father to make sure that we can give our kids and our grandkids the kind of future and the kind of country and democracy that they deserve.
[00:32:19]  I refuse to believe that my kids are doomed to grow up in an America shaped by Donald Trump, shaped by Stephen Miller, shaped by Speaker Johnson, these people that are trying to do so much damage to our country.
[00:32:31]  And why?
[00:32:32]  Why are they doing this?
[00:32:34]  It's for themselves.
[00:32:36]  It's for themselves.
[00:32:37]  It's not the Save America Act.
[00:32:38]  It's the Save Trump from his horrible policies act.
[00:32:42]  He is trying to distract us and move us off of what the American people actually want to see done.
[00:32:48]  And I just can't stand it anymore.
[00:32:49]  Honestly, it just drives me crazy.
[00:32:52]  Well, you know, we see our three things that this administration is trying to push through with the SAVE Act.
[00:32:58]  First of all, they are trying to ensure that billionaires can buy this democracy.
[00:33:02]  Is that something you want to see?
[00:33:05]  Over and over and over again, we see just the super PACs.
[00:33:08]  We see the billionaires aligned with Trump, donated to him, his big ballroom on the East Wing.
[00:33:15]  These are the things that we see fueling the corruption of this country as we see Trump has made billions of dollars since January 20th last year.
[00:33:24]  How much has your family made?
[00:33:26]  Number two is we see this being about having politicians choose the voters instead of voters choosing the politicians.
[00:33:34]  Remember, it's not just about the SAVE Act, it's about the fact that this president has tried to weaponize the gerrymandering all over this country.
[00:33:41]  It is all part of the same effort of this president trying to take over our democracy.
[00:33:48]  And the last thing we see this so clearly in the SAVE Act is he has tried to price people out of voting.
[00:33:54]  Try to make you have to pay for the right of voting.
[00:33:57]  Where did that come from?
[00:33:59]  How is that constitutional?
[00:34:01]  We know that this is something so against the fundamentals of our democracy.
[00:34:06]  So this is important.
[00:34:08]  This is so important, which is why I'm grateful all of you showed up.
[00:34:11]  But what we need to make sure is that the rest of America understands this.
[00:34:16]  You know, one thing that we just saw dropped last night, an amendment that would essentially get rid of all vote by mail in this country.
[00:34:23]  Can you believe that?
[00:34:26]  I can't believe, I cannot believe just how extreme this is.
[00:34:30]  People need to understand that just this is something that gets to the heart of our democracy.
[00:34:35]  And if it passes, it will undermine this, not just for us, but for generations.
[00:34:41]  And again, I refuse to believe that my kids are doomed to grow up in an America where we see our democracy undermined.
[00:34:48]  Not on my watch, right?
[00:34:49]  Not on your watch, right?
[00:34:51]  We're going to stand up together, and I'm sure if we do, we will be able to win this and be able to preserve this, be able to give the people the right to vote.
[00:34:59]  And guess what?
[00:34:59]  I know exactly what the people will vote if they're given that chance this November.
[00:35:04]  They're going to vote for change.
[00:35:05]  They're going to vote against Trump.
[00:35:07]  They're going to fight and vote for our democracy.
[00:35:09]  Thank you, everyone.
[00:35:15]  All right, that's right.
[00:35:17]  So now I'm going to bring up someone whose name you may not yet know, but you will one day.
[00:35:21]  This is an advocate whose quiet and tireless work helped make this whole fight possible.
[00:35:26]  Please join me in welcoming Owen Baskai with the Bernan Center for Justice.
[00:35:33]  Hello, thank you, Laura, and thank you all.
[00:35:35]  I'm Owen Basque.
[00:35:35]  I'm with the Brennan Center for Justice.
[00:35:37]  I'm honored to be here today with so many great partners and leaders from the U.S. Senate.
[00:35:42]  As others have highlighted, the SAVE Act will block millions of Americans from voting, and it must be stopped.
[00:35:48]  If this bill becomes law, you will have to show documents like a passport or a birth certificate every time you register to vote.
[00:35:55]  More than 21 million eligible American citizens do not have those documents readily available.
[00:36:02]  Half of Americans don't actually have a passport.
[00:36:05]  Millions lack access to their birth certificate.
[00:36:07]  And millions more women whose married names are not on their passport or birth certificate would face extra steps just to vote.
[00:36:14]  You'd also have to show these documents in person.
[00:36:17]  That means no more registration by mail, no more registration online, no more voter registration drives.
[00:36:23]  Automatic voter registration used in states across the country would be severely limited.
[00:36:28]  And states would have to send their voter rolls with your personal data to the Department of Homeland Security for inspection through the agency's flawed and error-prone tool for checking citizenship.
[00:36:42]  And for all that the SAVE Act does to hurt American voters, what does it solve?
[00:36:48]  Nothing.
[00:36:49]  Only American citizens vote.
[00:36:51]  That is already the law.
[00:36:52]  Exceptions are vanishingly rare.
[00:36:55]  And all available evidence, including from the Trump administration itself, has confirmed that time and time again.
[00:37:01]  The last time Congress tried to pass the SAVE Act, it failed because people across the country, including the leading voices here, stood up and spoke out.
[00:37:08]  Now, the White House has said that this show your papers policy is a key piece of the President's call to take over the voting.
[00:37:17]  Any vote to advance this bill is a vote to block millions of eligible Americans from the ballot box.
[00:37:23]  That is why we are calling on champions of democracy in the United States Senate to hold the floor, stop the SAVE Act, and protect the freedom to vote.
[00:37:31]  Thank you.
[00:37:34]  Thank you, Owen.
[00:37:35]  All right, and next, I'm delighted to bring up a powerful leader working to empower women and strengthen communities and strengthen our democracy with an organization that's been out here doing this work for more than 150 years.
[00:37:47]  Please join me in welcoming the director of the State and Advocacy Network Engagement at the YWCA, Christine Sloan.
[00:37:59]  Good morning, everybody.
[00:38:00]  It is.
[00:38:01]  Good morning.
[00:38:02]  Good morning.
[00:38:03]  I am truly so grateful to be able to stand beside such incredibly esteemed leaders in Congress and advocates beside me to unequivocally express that YWCA USA absolutely opposes the Save America Act and any bill, any bill at the city level, the state level, and the federal level that would seek to disenfranchise voters.
[00:38:32]  For more than 167 years, YWCA has served to promote peace, justice, freedom, and dignity in communities across this nation.
[00:38:44]  But to realize our vision that I think many of you share of a world in which all women and all girls can thrive, every single American from every single community must be able to participate in civic life.
[00:39:02]  From the suffrage movement through today and as long as it takes, YWCA will be here for this fight.
[00:39:13]  But we know a right that cannot be accessed is a right that cannot be realized.
[00:39:18]  And we thank our champions in the Senate for holding the floor and mounting righteous opposition.
[00:39:23]  Righteous opposition to this bill that would make it even harder for citizens to vote.
[00:39:27]  And that includes millions of women and also survivors.
[00:39:32]  Survivors of sexual assault.
[00:39:34]  Survivors of domestic violence.
[00:39:37]  Survivors of trafficking who also need to change their names.
[00:39:42]  Who also may have identities stolen from them by abusers and whose voices are routinely silenced, as we have seen.
[00:39:52]  So we are calling on all elected leaders, as I said, from cities, states, and from Congress, and we thank our champions here to get to work writing the bills that we actually need.

=== Names Changed, Rights Denied (02:16) ===

[00:40:03]  The bills that will make it easier, easier, and more accessible for every American's voice to be heard at the ballot box.
[00:40:10]  Thank you.
[00:40:13]  Thank you, Christine.
[00:40:15]  Okay, I am honored now to bring up someone representing an organization that knows a thing or two about voting rights and democracy, common cause, Mr. Charles Thomas Jr. from the great state of Michigan.
[00:40:26]  He traveled all the way here, y'all, to share his story.
[00:40:28]  Thank you for being with us, Mr. Charles.
[00:40:35]  Good morning.
[00:40:36]  Good morning.
[00:40:38]  My name is Charles Thomas Jr., and I'm a member of Common Cause from Michigan.
[00:40:46]  I am two generations removed from my grandfather, who was a sharecarper in Alabama.
[00:40:54]  And my aunts were foot soldiers who marched from Selma to Montgomery for the right to vote.
[00:41:00]  That's why I traveled from Detroit to be here today to demand the Senate to vote no on this obvious voter segregation bill they call the Save Act.
[00:41:13]  When my father joined the military, he was forced to legally change his name from Charlie to Charles.
[00:41:21]  After he passed, I presented his death certificate to a government agency and was told that I needed to change my name to Charlie in order to remain a junior.
[00:41:33]  Meanwhile, when I obtained my birth certificate, my name and my father's name were spelled differently.
[00:41:41]  His was Charlie with a Y and mine was Charlie with an IE.
[00:41:48]  In spite of all of these inconsistencies, I refuse to allow another government agency to force upon me a name change.
[00:41:57]  My sister had it even worse.
[00:41:59]  My father's name on her birth certificate was listed as her name and hers as my father's name.
[00:42:08]  It took her over three months to resolve the situation and it took a lot of money and help from our relative in Cincinnati, Ohio, the city where we were born.

=== Chipping Away At The People's Voice (06:47) ===

[00:42:20]  If there was an election during the time we were trying to straighten out our paperwork and this bill were to have been in place, we would have not been able to exercise our right to vote.
[00:42:30]  We know they cannot fix all of the bad record keeping for people of color, some of which was intentional.
[00:42:39]  People of color, Indigenous people, and women, those who fought the hardest to obtain the right to vote, will be impacted most by this bill.
[00:42:52]  The SAVE Act really harkens back to the times when those in power never wanted certain Americans to be able to vote.
[00:43:02]  It is not just this bill.
[00:43:04]  This is happening all over the country, including where I live in Michigan, where they're going to put this on the ballot this November.
[00:43:13]  We know this is all because those in power are trying to find a way to reduce the number of citizens who can participate in elections this year because they think if everyone was able to vote, they would lose.
[00:43:27]  But that's not what democracy is.
[00:43:30]  So I'm working with common cause and other groups to defend our vote in our state and our country.
[00:43:37]  We need a democracy that works for all the people.
[00:43:43]  So we say vote no on the Save Act and thank you.
[00:43:52]  Thank you.
[00:43:53]  One call.
[00:43:54]  This poll tax has got to go.
[00:43:56]  Hey, hey, ho-ho!
[00:43:58]  This poll tax has got to go.
[00:44:00]  Hey, hey, ho-ho!
[00:44:02]  This poll tax has got to go.
[00:44:05]  Thank you.
[00:44:05]  One more round of applause for the girls.
[00:44:08]  Thank you for traveling here and for sharing your story.
[00:44:12]  Okay, I am really honored now to bring up a voting rights leader like no other in the United States Senate, a moral voice that rises above the rest, who has been fighting for voting rights since the day he set foot in the Senate and since long, long before that.
[00:44:28]  The senator from the great state of Georgia, Senator Raphael, excuse me, Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock.
[00:44:40]  Hello, everybody.
[00:44:41]  Hello.
[00:44:42]  Hello, everybody.
[00:44:45]  Are y'all ready to defeat the Save Act?
[00:44:47]  Yes!
[00:44:49]  So listen, this is very simple.
[00:44:53]  This is not complicated stuff.
[00:44:55]  This is no math test.
[00:44:58]  I can boil it down to one sentence.
[00:45:00]  Donald Trump knows that he is losing.
[00:45:05]  That's what this is about.
[00:45:08]  He's losing.
[00:45:10]  The American people have had it with him and with his policies.
[00:45:16]  He ran as somebody who was going to lower costs, who was going to stay out of endless wars in the Middle East.
[00:45:27]  And he is failing.
[00:45:32]  But instead of changing his policies, he's trying to change the shape of the electorate.
[00:45:41]  And this really is not a partisan issue.
[00:45:46]  Voting rights is basic.
[00:45:50]  Whatever other issue you're trying to fight for, the democracy is the house that we live in.
[00:45:57]  It is the context in which we get to fight the good fight.
[00:46:02]  So whatever we do, we always have to stand up for the democracy.
[00:46:09]  And so, as I often say, a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children.
[00:46:19]  And our prayers are stronger when we pray together.
[00:46:23]  But these days I'm praying harder.
[00:46:26]  I'm praying not only with my lips, but with my legs.
[00:46:29]  We have to pray with our hands and with our feet.
[00:46:32]  We have to show up and fight for the world that we want to see.
[00:46:38]  I'm very worried about America, to be honest.
[00:46:41]  I'm very worried because this SAVE Act is just one more iteration of the chipping away of the people's voice.
[00:46:54]  That's what I mean when I say this is bigger than partisan politics.
[00:46:59]  I need my friends who don't agree with me on most things to see what's really happening here.
[00:47:07]  Little by little, the voices of the people, regardless of your politics, the voices of the people are getting softer and softer.
[00:47:15]  And the voices of moneyed interests, people with big money, people who can write big checks, those are getting louder and louder.
[00:47:23]  They are literally squeezing the voices of the people out of their own democracy.
[00:47:29]  And one flashpoint of that was Citizens United.
[00:47:33]  When they said a corporation is a person.
[00:47:37]  And we've seen that voice get louder and louder and louder.
[00:47:40]  Have you ever wondered why it's hard for us to get stuff done?
[00:47:44]  Think about how divided our country is.
[00:47:46]  And it is.
[00:47:46]  There are divides, there are cultural wars, all of that's true.
[00:47:51]  But even on the stuff we agree with, even in the areas where there's broad agreement among Americans, we can't get any movement in that building.
[00:48:01]  So what does that tell you?
[00:48:02]  That tells you that somebody else other than the people increasingly own the democracy.
[00:48:11]  Like we don't agree on the gun issue.
[00:48:13]  There are differences.
[00:48:14]  But most Americans believe in background checks.
[00:48:18]  Why can't we get a vote on it?
[00:48:22]  Why is there no real discussion about it?
[00:48:24]  And so I need folks to see the SAVE Act for what it is.
[00:48:29]  This is about us moving from a democracy increasingly to an oligarchy.
[00:48:35]  This is about big people with big interests, with big money determining the agenda.
[00:48:42]  And so we have to defeat the SAVE Act because they're not trying to save America.
[00:48:47]  They're trying to save their own power at any cost.
[00:48:50]  But we're not having it.
[00:48:51]  I'll stand up all night if I have to stand up in that building to defeat the SAVE Act.
[00:48:58]  And so let's stay in this fight.
[00:49:02]  And whatever you do, don't give in to those who are trying to weaponize despair.

=== Moving From Democracy To Oligarchy (15:28) ===

[00:49:07]  Who are trying to convince you that they have already won.
[00:49:13]  Because if they can convince you of that, then you stop fighting.
[00:49:18]  But when we fight, we win.
[00:49:21]  When we fight, when we fight, when we fight, and so don't give in to the forces.
[00:49:30]  Because we've seen tough, tough times before.
[00:49:33]  I'm here with the Reverend Dr. Spencer from Georgia.
[00:49:38]  And in so many ways, the people of our state have been standing up.
[00:49:46]  But you know, I was John Lewis's pastor.
[00:49:50]  And so I'm not about to give up in the face of Donald Trump.
[00:49:54]  We've seen this kind before.
[00:49:57]  We've seen these kinds of fights before.
[00:50:00]  And so as I close, and nobody believes a Baptist preacher when he says as I close, when Martin Luther King Jr. enjoyed the victory of having passed the civil rights bill into law, he went to see President Johnson in the White House.
[00:50:23]  Andy Young told me this story.
[00:50:26]  And he and his lieutenants went to see the president, and the president was feeling all wonderful and, you know, congratulating himself that they passed the civil rights bill and the law.
[00:50:38]  Big deal was a huge deal that they got it done.
[00:50:41]  And Dr. King recognized that, but he said, thank you very much, Mr. President.
[00:50:45]  I need a voting rights bill.
[00:50:49]  I mean, he didn't skip a beat.
[00:50:51]  He said, yep, we got public accommodations, but I'm not a citizen if I don't have the right to vote.
[00:50:56]  I need a voting rights law and I need it now.
[00:51:02]  And the president of the United States didn't push back, you know, in principle.
[00:51:07]  He said, I hear your point.
[00:51:11]  But you got to understand how politics works, Dr. King.
[00:51:14]  I can't get that done right now.
[00:51:16]  I just passed a civil rights bill into law.
[00:51:20]  I had to get that through the forces in the South, the Dixiecrats, who didn't want to see that.
[00:51:26]  I barely, I was just able to get, I don't have the power.
[00:51:31]  I don't have the power to do it right now.
[00:51:34]  And they left the meeting, and the staff was feeling all demoralized and dejected.
[00:51:40]  And they said to Dr. King, what are we going to do?
[00:51:42]  The President of the United States just said to us he doesn't have the power to get us our voting rights.
[00:51:49]  Dr. King just sort of shrugged his shoulder and said, well, if the president doesn't have the power, I guess we're going to have to go and find himself.
[00:52:01]  I like that story because he's a man who wasn't elected to anything.
[00:52:07]  He wasn't a United States Senator.
[00:52:09]  He was just a Baptist preacher on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia.
[00:52:13]  And he said, I'm going to go and get the President of the United States some power.
[00:52:18]  It is a way of saying that it's not about the people in power, it's about the power that's in the people.
[00:52:27]  I'm trying to tell you that you have more power than you think you have.
[00:52:31]  And if you stand up today and stand up tomorrow and stand up next week and stand up all the way to November, we're going to put some guardrails on this president.
[00:52:41]  We're going to shut down.
[00:52:43]  We're going to shut down this agenda that's creating terror on the streets all across our city with mass men jumping out of unmarked cars, pulling people and creating terror.
[00:52:54]  We can put guardrails on this president.
[00:52:58]  And we keep this momentum and this courage all the way to November and then beyond.
[00:53:02]  Are you ready to stand up?
[00:53:04]  Are you ready to save America from the SAVE Act?
[00:53:08]  Well, let's stand up.
[00:53:10]  And when we stand up, we win.
[00:53:12]  God bless all of you.
[00:53:12]  keep the faith.
[00:53:18]  Thank you, thank you.
[00:53:20]  Senator Reverend Warnock, one more round of applause.
[00:53:25]  Thank you for taking us to church and reminding us that this is a spiritual fight that we are in.
[00:53:29]  Our people have been in this a long time and they showed us the power that we have.
[00:53:33]  We still have that power.
[00:53:34]  We are going to defeat this thing with that power.
[00:53:36]  I'm excited to bring up next an incredible organizer and voting rights advocate who will not tell you this, but who is responsible for a lot of what you see here today.
[00:53:45]  So thank you for joining me in welcoming the campaign coordinator for the Declaration for American Democracy Coalition, Jalissa Giles.
[00:53:56]  Hello, everyone.
[00:53:57]  As she mentioned, my name is Jaleesa Giles.
[00:53:59]  I'm the campaign coordinator of the Declaration for American Democracy Coalition, and I stand here today as someone who deeply, deeply believes that voting rights are not just policy debates.
[00:54:10]  They are moral decisions about who belongs and deserves a voice in our democracy.
[00:54:16]  Just days ago, I was in Selma, Alabama, walking across the Edmund Pettis Bridge.
[00:54:21]  And when you walk across that bridge, you don't just see history.
[00:54:25]  You feel responsibility.
[00:54:28]  You think about the people who were beaten there simply for demanding the right to vote.
[00:54:33]  And it forces you to ask, how are we still having this fight today?
[00:54:38]  Because this is what the SAVE Act represents, another barrier, another test, another attempt to decide who gets to fully participate in American democracy.
[00:54:48]  We are told that this bill is about election security, but we know the truth.
[00:54:53]  We know that you do not protect democracy by making it harder for eligible Americans to vote.
[00:55:00]  This bill, as you've heard said so many times today, will disproportionately impact everyday Americans, seniors, young voters, married women whose documents may not match their names and communities that have historically had to fight the hardest just to be heard.
[00:55:16]  And this moment is bigger than just this one bill.
[00:55:19]  From the SAVE Act to court fights like the Calais decision, that could weaken protections against racial discrimination in voting.
[00:55:27]  We are seeing real attempts to roll back progress that generations fought to secure.
[00:55:33]  Many of our historic leaders who were mentioned earlier today are no longer here with us.
[00:55:38]  John Lewis, Dr. King, Megha Evers, Jesse Jackson, and so many others, but the fight did not end with them.
[00:55:46]  The responsibility simply passed to us.
[00:55:50]  So today we are here to say something very, very, very simple.
[00:55:54]  We will not go backwards.
[00:55:56]  We will not accept new barriers to the ballot.
[00:55:59]  And we will not stop fighting to protect the freedom to vote.
[00:56:02]  Because if the past has taught us anything, it has taught us that democracy is not something you inherit.
[00:56:09]  It's something you protect.
[00:56:10]  Thank y'all.
[00:56:14]  Thank you.
[00:56:14]  Thank you, Jalisa.
[00:56:16]  All right, join me now in welcoming our next speaker, someone whose quiet and tireless work ensures that our friends, neighbors, and colleagues with disabilities are not left out of the conversation.
[00:56:25]  Thank you for joining us.
[00:56:26]  Cameron Lynch with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.
[00:56:34]  For decades, disabled people have been kept out of the polls.
[00:56:38]  Election offices lack accessible entrances.
[00:56:41]  Transportation to election offices are not reliable.
[00:56:44]  Wait times are too long, but we still show up.
[00:56:48]  We have three times more difficulty casting a ballot, but we still show up.
[00:56:53]  The SAVE Act attempts to silence our voices and make it even harder than it already is for disabled people to show up.
[00:57:01]  Federal law requires every part of the voting process to be accessible, from registering to vote to casting a ballot.
[00:57:08]  The SAVE Act violates these laws.
[00:57:11]  There are 40.2 million eligible voters with disabilities in the United States.
[00:57:17]  That is 40.2 million voices that have a legal right to cast our vote.
[00:57:22]  In-person registration would exacerbate existing barriers to participation, including inaccessible polling places and election offices, stricter voter identification laws, and limited mobility and transportation.
[00:57:37]  Vote by mail is critical for people who cannot drive, cannot travel long distances, cannot stand in long lines, or require help to vote at home.
[00:57:47]  Requiring a passport or other forms of documentation would not enhance election integrity.
[00:57:53]  It would establish unnecessary and illegal roadblocks for millions of eligible citizens, specifically our disabled population, who is less likely to have accurate documentation because of systematic barriers.
[00:58:06]  The city hall doesn't have an elevator to get to the office you need to fill out your forms.
[00:58:11]  The forms online aren't tagged so blind people can read them.
[00:58:15]  The policies in these bills, limiting vote by mail, criminalizing voter assistance, and adding burdensome voter registration practices undermine accessibility, disenfranchise voters, and weaken the foundation of our democracy.
[00:58:31]  The SAVE Act must be stopped.
[00:58:34]  Disabled people have the right to vote, to have our voices heard, and continue to show up.
[00:58:39]  And most importantly, nothing about us without us.
[00:58:46]  Thank you, Cameron.
[00:58:47]  Thank you, Cameron.
[00:58:48]  All right, stick with us, folks.
[00:58:49]  We have a couple more powerful voices you want to hear from.
[00:58:52]  Our next speaker's leadership spans military service overseas as well as work building power with veterans right here at home.
[00:58:58]  Please join me in welcoming the political director of common defense and U.S. Army veteran, Naveed Shah.
[00:59:08]  Good morning, everybody.
[00:59:09]  Thank you so much for being here.
[00:59:11]  You know, we were told that this bill is about protecting democracy, but let's talk about who it really hurts.
[00:59:16]  Because one of the groups hit hardest by the SAVED Act are the very people who put their lives on the line to defend it.
[00:59:22]  Service members, veterans, and their families.
[00:59:25]  My name is Naveed Shah.
[00:59:26]  I'm an Iraq war veteran who served in the U.S. Army, and I'm proud to speak today on behalf of Common Defense, the grassroots voice for progressive veterans, where I serve as political director.
[00:59:36]  We've been fighting every day to protect our environment, defend democracy, and end forever wars.
[00:59:41]  And that's why I'm here signing the alarm on the SAVE Act.
[00:59:44]  For service members and their families, the SAVE Act is a disaster.
[00:59:49]  Active duty military members move on average every two to three years.
[00:59:53]  Every change of station, every deployment, every new base, that means re-registering to vote.
[00:59:58]  And under the SAVE Act, military voters would be required to present documentation every single time.
[01:00:03]  That's not a one-time inconvenience.
[01:00:05]  That's a recurring burden placed on the people we asked to sacrifice the most.
[01:00:10]  And here's what makes it worse: a military ID alone would not be sufficient to prove citizenship.
[01:00:15]  Service members would need a military ID plus a record showing their place of birth and other documents.
[01:00:21]  Think about that.
[01:00:22]  The same ID card that gets you into a military installation that identifies you as a member of the armed services, that's not enough.
[01:00:28]  You need to dig up paperwork on top of it.
[01:00:30]  For a soldier stationed overseas, for a spouse managing a household alone while their partner is deployed, that extra step is not a small ask.
[01:00:38]  That's a huge task that takes up more space in their life.
[01:00:42]  Let's be clear.
[01:00:43]  Non-citizen voting is already illegal and extremely rare.
[01:00:46]  This bill does not fix any problems.
[01:00:48]  It creates massive new barriers for the very citizens who sacrifice the most to protect our democracy.
[01:00:55]  According to the U.S. Vote Foundation, the SAVE Act would jeopardize voting registration for military service members serving abroad and other citizens serving overseas.
[01:01:03]  These are people who are defending our right to vote right now, and this bill makes it harder for them to exercise that same right.
[01:01:10]  And let's not forget veterans.
[01:01:11]  A U.S. Veterans ID card would not be accepted either under this bill.
[01:01:15]  The card we give to honor their service, get them into the VA, isn't good enough to get them to register to vote.
[01:01:21]  We ask these men and women to be separated from their families, to move wherever the military sends them, to serve in harm's way in wars that we didn't choose.
[01:01:29]  The least we can do, the absolute least we can do, is make sure that their vote is never in question.
[01:01:36]  The SAVE Act fails that basic test.
[01:01:39]  It burdens the people who have earned the right to vote without question, and we should reject it.
[01:01:44]  Common Defense stands with every veteran, every service member, every military family in saying, enough is enough.
[01:01:50]  Stop the SAVE Act.
[01:01:51]  Call your Congress members today.
[01:01:52]  Demand that they reject this attack on our service.
[01:01:55]  Thank you.
[01:01:59]  Thank you, Davey, Naveed.
[01:02:01]  All right, our next speaker is a quiet but powerful leader who ensures that Latino voters across the country can exercise their freedom to vote.
[01:02:07]  Join me in welcoming the DC Regional Council at the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Ms. Andrea Centeno.
[01:02:17]  Good morning, everyone.
[01:02:20]  MALDEF, for almost 60 years, has worked to promote the civil rights of all Latinos living in the United States and the constitutional rights of every American.
[01:02:29]  Since its founding, one of our top priorities has been to secure equal voting rights for Latinos and to promote increased civic engagement and participation in the Latino community.
[01:02:40]  We know it, and you know it.
[01:02:42]  The SAVE Act would not improve elections.
[01:02:46]  This bill is all about controlling who gets to vote.
[01:02:52]  Proposals like the SAVE Act are being pushed as part of a disinformation campaign about the security of our elections in order to suppress the vote of the Latino community, of other communities of color, and other voters.
[01:03:06]  I want you all to consider that Latinos are 19% of the national population today.
[01:03:12]  And we are a growing share of the U.S. electorate.
[01:03:15]  We have been the largest racial or ethnic minority group for more than two decades.
[01:03:20]  Those demographic changes are even more striking when you look at the growth of communities of color across the country.
[01:03:27]  They know that.
[01:03:28]  That's why they want this bill.
[01:03:30]  That's right.
[01:03:32]  And instead of developing policies and laws that are designed to safeguard the right to vote for every eligible person, we have seen persistent disinformation about our elections.
[01:03:44]  And that disinformation is designed to disenfranchise Latino voters, other voters of color, and people who already confront numerous barriers to register and cast a ballot.
[01:03:57]  And that disinformation exploits the demographic fear in our politics today by design in order to restrict the right to vote for too many citizens.
[01:04:08]  The reality is that a vast majority of Americans would not be able to use their real ID to prove their citizenship status and to register to vote under this bill.
[01:04:17]  And those who would suffer most will be the voters who already face the greatest hurdles to accessing the vote.
[01:04:24]  The SAVE Act will only, it's not only going to affect the ability to register to vote for married women, voters of color, Indigenous voters, low-income voters, young voters, voters with disability.

=== Criminalizing Trans Kids And Families (15:48) ===

[01:04:36]  It's also going to undermine the community effort to increase voter registration by effectively banning online voter registration, registration by mail, and important community voter registration drives.
[01:04:49]  So these types of proposals create confusion among eligible citizen voters, particularly naturalized voters, and they affect the ability of limited English proficient voters to access the ballot in addition to many others.
[01:05:04]  So we know that this is a voter suppression tactic designed to breed distrust in our election system.
[01:05:10]  And that rhetoric, explicit or implicit, that purports to claim that only certain people who look like a citizen should be able to get to vote, it creates real risk.
[01:05:20]  Real risk of harassment and intimidation, and it really isn't right.
[01:05:24]  Because these are people seeking to exercise their most fundamental basic right.
[01:05:28]  So right now, we need Congress to do its job, and we need the Senate to reject this bill wholeheartedly so that every voter can participate fully in this democracy without fear, without intimidation, and without suppression.
[01:05:44]  Woo!
[01:05:51]  Thank y'all.
[01:05:52]  Awesome.
[01:05:53]  Y'all, we're going to do a real quick chant with y'all.
[01:05:55]  when voting rights are under attack what do we do when voting rights are under attack what do we do when voting rights are under attack what do we do When voting rights are under attack, one more time, what do we do?
[01:06:10]  Stand up right now.
[01:06:11]  There we go.
[01:06:12]  Thank y'all.
[01:06:15]  Thank you, Carlos.
[01:06:15]  Thank you, Common Cause.
[01:06:17]  We are delighted now to bring up a very special speaker, someone who leads the work of the human rights campaign, making sure that our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQIA community are part of the conversation and leading the fight.
[01:06:30]  Please join me in welcoming the president and CEO of the HRC, Kelly Robinson.
[01:06:38]  Thank you for having me, y'all.
[01:06:39]  And thanks, everyone, for being here to stand up for democracy.
[01:06:44]  To stand up for our country.
[01:06:47]  To stand up for all of our communities.
[01:06:49]  Y'all, this is an important moment in the history of our country.
[01:06:54]  This is one of those moments where we've got to ask ourselves: how much do we care about the promise of this nation?
[01:07:01]  Because this bill is not about saving America.
[01:07:05]  This bill is about stealing an election.
[01:07:08]  This bill is about suppressing voters.
[01:07:11]  This bill is about taking away our basic rights to humanity and dignity in this country, and we are not going to stand for it.
[01:07:20]  I'm proud to be here today.
[01:07:21]  I'm Kelly Robinson.
[01:07:22]  I'm president of the Human Rights Campaign.
[01:07:25]  We are the largest LGBTQ organization fighting for the civil rights of our community.
[01:07:30]  And I got to say, we are not moving forward unless we continue to protect our trans community and our trans kids, y'all.
[01:07:39]  We have to do that work.
[01:07:41]  And today, I want you to know that this bill not only tries to disenfranchise voters that deserve their right to vote, it also tries to criminalize trans kids and their families.
[01:07:54]  It tries to criminalize doctors providing medically necessary care for our trans youth.
[01:08:00]  It tries to create another way that kids who are just trying to be who they are in this world are being terrorized and demonized by adults who should know better.
[01:08:14]  So, if you came here today because you give a damn about trans kids, let me hear you.
[01:08:19]  If you came here because you give a damn about our democracy, let me hear you.
[01:08:24]  If you came here because you care about us being able to be free and joyful, let me hear you.
[01:08:30]  Y'all, all of that is on the line, and it comes down to the decisions that we are going to make today.
[01:08:35]  And we are here to make it clear that the people in the building behind me work for us.
[01:08:42]  And the will of the people is at play right now.
[01:08:44]  And we are not going to relent until this bill fails.
[01:08:51]  Thank you all for being here.
[01:08:52]  Thank you for keeping up the fight.
[01:08:54]  Show me what democracy looks like.
[01:08:56]  This is what democracy looks like.
[01:08:58]  Show me what democracy looks like.
[01:09:00]  This is what democracy looks like.
[01:09:03]  Show me what democracy looks like.
[01:09:05]  This is what democracy looks like.
[01:09:07]  The People United are never going to fail.
[01:09:09]  Thank you, everybody.
[01:09:12]  Thank you, Kelly.
[01:09:14]  All right, now, real talk.
[01:09:16]  Y'all know who is really holding it down and keeping it real and bringing the heat commensurate with the challenges we face?
[01:09:22]  It's the young folks.
[01:09:24]  So, I am delighted.
[01:09:25]  We are delighted to be joined by Vienna Cavasos from the Gen Vote and the Delaware Voting Rights Coalition to tell us like it is.
[01:09:38]  Well, I'll be the first to say good afternoon.
[01:09:42]  My name is Vienna Cavasos.
[01:09:44]  I am a transgender student at the University of Delaware and an organizer with Generation Vote.
[01:09:52]  To pass the SAVE Act would be to perform a direct assault upon American democracy, disenfranchising millions.
[01:10:00]  We have relitigated this over and over and over today.
[01:10:04]  The SAVE Act is not about election integrity, it's about election weaponization.
[01:10:10]  This bill will disenfranchise millions, and that is not its coincidence.
[01:10:14]  That's its goal.
[01:10:16]  Among those millions are American students, my classmates.
[01:10:22]  The SAVE Act rips away students' most accessible form of ID, disqualifying student IDs in registration.
[01:10:30]  Students move frequently.
[01:10:32]  Every new dorm, every new apartment means we have to take another trip to an elections office just to stay registered.
[01:10:40]  And with those stricter registration rules, we can kiss campus registration goodbye.
[01:10:47]  It's gone.
[01:10:50]  That is not a minor inconvenience.
[01:10:52]  It is a barrier specifically designed to keep us out of the ballot box.
[01:10:59]  But it doesn't stop there.
[01:11:01]  As the HRC just said, this bill would force transgender voters to present documents that may not reflect who they are.
[01:11:08]  Documents that states and the federal government have made increasingly difficult to change.
[01:11:15]  We are talking about around 3.3 million eligible trans voters who could be turned away from our most sacred right, a right people have died for.
[01:11:27]  And if we're not, and if that were not enough, the president wants to weaponize this bill, adding anti-trans writers, banning gender affirming care, banning trans athletes.
[01:11:37]  He's already tried this.
[01:11:43]  Democracy works best when everyone is included.
[01:11:46]  This is democracy.
[01:11:49]  Young people and transgender people and everyone around us, we are not a footnote in our democracy.
[01:11:56]  We build this democracy and we are its future.
[01:12:00]  Thank you.
[01:12:04]  All right, what do I tell you?
[01:12:05]  Thank you so much, Vienna.
[01:12:07]  Okay, for our next speaker, someone who is working for voting rights and civil rights all the way from New York down to New Orleans.
[01:12:14]  And now right here in the district, we're delighted to welcome ACLU's senior campaign strategist for democracy, Armani Eady.
[01:12:24]  Well, good afternoon, everyone.
[01:12:26]  We could do better than that.
[01:12:27]  Good afternoon, everyone.
[01:12:30]  My name is Armani Eady.
[01:12:31]  I am a senior campaign strategist with the ACLU.
[01:12:34]  I bring greetings on behalf of our national office and all of our affiliates working coast to coast tirelessly to defend the voting rights.
[01:12:42]  Also, I want to thank our allied partners, senators who are aligned on this to stop the SAVE Act in its tracks.
[01:12:50]  I am standing here as evidence of what democracy looks like when it works.
[01:12:56]  It is a reminder to me that we are on sacred ground.
[01:12:59]  A democracy that my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my mother wasn't even fully really actualized in, but I am.
[01:13:08]  And so I am reminded today that the SAVE Act is another target on us.
[01:13:12]  It is voter suppression at its worst.
[01:13:16]  We are going back, but we won't go back because you see, they've tried this in Kansas.
[01:13:21]  In Kansas, 35,000 people were disenfranchised because they weren't able to register to vote because of laws like this.
[01:13:30]  But the court said that that was unconstitutional.
[01:13:33]  Now in New Hampshire and Florida, we see same attempts to disenfranchise voters.
[01:13:39]  One is too many for me.
[01:13:40]  That's right.
[01:13:41]  Right?
[01:13:41]  One is too many for me.
[01:13:44]  And so Trump and his allies want to do a roadshow and take this nationwide to disenfranchise people who look like me, to disenfranchise millions of people, young, old, people with disabilities.
[01:14:00]  We're talking about the most vulnerable among us.
[01:14:03]  But they do not care and they will not stop, but neither will we.
[01:14:08]  Neither will we.
[01:14:09]  21 million people cannot access their documents.
[01:14:14]  And I don't know about you all, but my parents are still holding on to my birth certificate.
[01:14:18]  They're still holding on to my degrees.
[01:14:20]  And so what does that do when you lead people out of our democracy?
[01:14:24]  What does it say?
[01:14:25]  Right?
[01:14:26]  And so we see this time and time and time again.
[01:14:30]  But I believe that together we can combat this thing.
[01:14:34]  That together we will do what is necessary to do this work.
[01:14:39]  I will also say that we're not new to this.
[01:14:42]  Same playbook, but no game plan for them.
[01:14:45]  We have the game plan.
[01:14:48]  We are the game plan from the policymakers to the organizers to the litigators to the community members.
[01:14:54]  We are the game plan.
[01:14:57]  And so in closing, I want us to consider the fact that we will not stop.
[01:15:02]  We will continue demanding that the SAFE Act be rejected and that we will continue working to ensure that our democracy, the arch of our democracy, bends towards justice and equality and equity for all.
[01:15:16]  Thank you so much.
[01:15:21]  All right, y'all, for our second to last speaker, we have yet another powerful democracy organizer, advocate, policy expert, and another one of those people who made this whole thing happen.
[01:15:31]  Please join me in welcoming the Democracy Program Director at the League of Conservation Voters, Justin Cuassa.
[01:15:40]  All right, second to last, no pressure.
[01:15:41]  All right.
[01:15:42]  So my name is Justin Quassa, and I'm from the League of Conservation Voters.
[01:15:45]  And I just have one thing to say, that we can't have a healthy environment without a healthy democracy.
[01:15:49]  So we understand that voting is the most effective way for our communities to be heard.
[01:15:53]  And we know that the communities that have historically been denied that right to vote are the ones that take out the worst of environmental injustice.
[01:16:01]  The Save America Act is a modern voter suppression bill, point blank.
[01:16:05]  We know that limiting the accepted forms of identification will disenfranchise millions of people across the country, especially for people who don't have passports.
[01:16:12]  This is basically a poll tax.
[01:16:14]  We know that requiring original birth certificates will disenfranchise millions of women in our friends and LGBTQ community because their IDs don't match their birth names.
[01:16:24]  We know that eliminating the ability to register online or vote by mail will suppress voters millions across the country from indigenous communities, rural communities, disabled communities, because they don't live conveniently near election offices.
[01:16:38]  And we know that eliminating voter registration drives will suppress the voice of all communities no matter where you're from because a strong democracy functions best when every older voter has their voice heard.
[01:16:50]  If Congress is serious about protecting our elections, we already have the solutions.
[01:16:54]  We have the Freedom to Vote Act.
[01:16:56]  We have the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
[01:16:59]  They've already been introduced in Congress and it will modernize our elections to fit today's voting landscape.
[01:17:05]  So I want to call on the Senate and I want to tell them to reject the Save America Act and other similar bills and focus on passing legislation that includes voters and not excludes them.
[01:17:15]  Thank you.
[01:17:18]  That's right.
[01:17:18]  Thank you, Justin.
[01:17:20]  All right, everyone, you are in for a treat with our last speaker who has been working for civil rights inside the federal bureaucracy on the outside here with us, all the way from Texas up here to DC.
[01:17:30]  And because she's going to bring us home, and I know that you're not going to want to hear from me again after you hear from her, so let me just say, thank you for being here today.
[01:17:37]  Thank you for showing up and bringing the energy and the heat.
[01:17:39]  If you haven't already, contact your senator, tell them to oppose the SAVE Act.
[01:17:43]  And if they are among those many wonderful senators, some of whom are here with us today, who already opposed the SAVE Act, thank them.
[01:17:48]  Take a moment to thank them, to show them some love, to shout out their tremendous leadership.
[01:17:53]  And y'all, it's not easy work to hold the Senate floor for hours and hours overnight, days and weeks and all that.
[01:17:58]  So show them some love, thank them, thank them.
[01:18:00]  And please join me in welcoming the Director of Policy at the Legal Defense Fund, Demetria McCain.
[01:18:09]  Well, yes, it is good afternoon, isn't it?
[01:18:12]  Good afternoon, folks.
[01:18:12]  I'm Demetri McCain.
[01:18:14]  As was mentioned, I have the pleasure of serving as the Director of Policy at the premier racial justice law organization in the country founded in 1940 by none other than Thurgood Marshall.
[01:18:27]  And at LDF, regarding the SAVE Act, we fight back.
[01:18:32]  We fight back because this is based on the premise, a false narrative, that there's some voter fraud.
[01:18:39]  There's no voter fraud, is there?
[01:18:41]  There's no voter fraud, is there?
[01:18:44]  There's no voter fraud to speak of.
[01:18:47]  This is created to sabotage our elections across the country.
[01:18:52]  At LDF, we work to promote the dignity and humanity of black communities.
[01:18:58]  That's why on the SAVE Act, we fight back.
[01:19:03]  This SAVE Act will actually disenfranchise the 46 million women who have changed their names when they got married.
[01:19:12]  So on the SAVE Act, we fight back.
[01:19:15]  This particular provision throughout this particular crazy act will actually harm and hurt rural communities, people with disabilities, other low-income people, other people of color.
[01:19:30]  So on the SAVE Act, we fight back.
[01:19:33]  On the SAVE Act, we fight back because we know that only 50% of Americans even have passports to prove their citizenship.
[01:19:42]  So on the SAVE Act, we fight back.
[01:19:46]  And we also know that folks who have passports who happen to be part of the black community, that's only one-third of the people who have passports.
[01:19:54]  So on the SAVE Act, we fight back.
[01:19:58]  Listen, folks, there are people who were born in 1946 in that period of time.
[01:20:03]  My own parents were born in 1931.
[01:20:05]  There was segregation.
[01:20:07]  People couldn't have babies and children in hospitals.
[01:20:11]  So there are plenty of black people who don't even have the access to birth certificates because of the segregation and discrimination of this country.
[01:20:21]  So on the SAVE Act, we fight back.

=== Bridging Divides In American Politics (05:34) ===

[01:20:24]  Folks, this is critical.
[01:20:26]  So what we're going to do right now, we're going to understand that SAVE Act is going to hurt us, hurt our communities, and criminalize election professionals for making little administrative mistakes.
[01:20:39]  But what it won't do, it won't criminalize the people who are purging people illegally from the voting rolls.
[01:20:46]  So on the SAVE Act, we fight back.
[01:20:50]  Everybody turn to the Capitol and tell our senators, on the SAVE Act, we want you to fight back.
[01:20:56]  So on the SAVE Act, you better fight back.
[01:20:59]  On the SAVE Act, you better fight back.
[01:21:02]  On the SAVE Act, you better fight back.
[01:21:05]  on the SAVE Act, we will fight back!
[01:21:26]  This is what democracy looks like.
[01:21:29]  Show me what democracy looks like.
[01:21:31]  This is what democracy looks like.
[01:21:33]  All right.
[01:21:34]  Thank you all our speakers.
[01:21:35]  Thank you, Senator Padilla, for hosting us and all the other senators who are opposing this thing.
[01:21:41]  Thank you, sir.
[01:21:57]  Earlier today, Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen testified at a confirmation hearing to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security.
[01:22:05]  President Trump picked Senator Mullen to lead the department earlier this month after announcing current Secretary Christy Noam would be reassigned to a special envoy role.
[01:22:14]  Watch the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2.
[01:22:21]  C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org.
[01:22:30]  Earlier today, the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA Director John Radcliffe were on Capitol Hill to testify on global threats.
[01:22:41]  Their testimony came amid ongoing military strikes on Iran by the U.S. and Israel.
[01:22:46]  Watch the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
[01:22:51]  C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, and online at c-SPAN.org.
[01:23:00]  Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
[01:23:03]  We have to listen so we can govern better.
[01:23:05]  Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility.
[01:23:08]  You can fight and still be friendly.
[01:23:10]  Bridging the divide in American politics.
[01:23:13]  You know, you may not agree with Le Dokran on everything, but you can find areas where you do agree.
[01:23:16]  He's a pretty likable guy as well.
[01:23:18]  Chris Kins and I are actually friends.
[01:23:19]  He votes wrong all the time, but we're actually friends.
[01:23:22]  A horrible secret that Scott and I have is that we actually respect each other.
[01:23:25]  We all don't hate each other.
[01:23:27]  You two actually kind of like each other.
[01:23:29]  These are the kinds of secrets we'd like to expose.
[01:23:31]  It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
[01:23:34]  Les did agree to the civility, all right?
[01:23:36]  He owes my son $10 from a bet.
[01:23:39]  He's never paid for it.
[01:23:40]  Fork it over.
[01:23:42]  That's fighting words right now.
[01:23:43]  I'm glad I'm not in charge of it.
[01:23:44]  I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
[01:23:46]  There are not shows like this, right?
[01:23:48]  Incentivizing that relationship.
[01:23:51]  Ceasefire, Friday nights on C-SPAN.
[01:24:01]  C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get.
[01:24:05]  You are so fair.
[01:24:06]  I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
[01:24:08]  You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
[01:24:13]  I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
[01:24:16]  You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
[01:24:23]  I absolutely love C-SPAN.
[01:24:25]  I love to hear both sides.
[01:24:27]  I've watched C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased.
[01:24:30]  And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
[01:24:37]  This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
[01:24:42]  You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
[01:24:50]  Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark.
[01:24:56]  You're watching democracy happen in real time.
[01:24:59]  For 47 years, since March 19, 1979, C-SPAN has made that possible.
[01:25:05]  No commentary, no spin, no government funding.
[01:25:08]  Just democracy unfiltered.
[01:25:10]  As we celebrate our Founders Day, join viewers like you who are helping C-SPAN carry this mission forward.
[01:25:15]  Visit c-span.org/slash donate or scan the QR code, make your contribution today.
[01:25:21]  Preserve the legacy, power the present, shape the future.
[01:25:24]  Support C-SPAN with a Founders Day gift.
[01:25:30]  As calls are coming in, we'll introduce you to Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who joins us from Capitol Hill via Zoom and here to answer your questions or at least talk to you a little bit about certain topics that are happening in Congress.
[01:25:43]  Representative Luna, thanks for giving us your time.
[01:25:46]  Thank you for having me.
[01:25:47]  Happy to be back.
[01:25:48]  Representative, as a member of the House, what do you make of the debate going on in the Senate over the Save America Act?
[01:25:55]  Look, I have a back channel network of people that are feeding me information about