Supporting the designation of September 2025 as "National Voting Rights Month".

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 756 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 756

   Supporting the designation of September 2025 as ``National Voting 
                            Rights Month''.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 19, 2025

    Mr. Veasey (for himself, Mr. Scott of Virginia, Ms. Sewell, Ms. 
   Williams of Georgia, Mr. Green of Texas, Ms. Meng, Mr. Johnson of 
 Georgia, Mr. Fields, Mr. Deluzio, Ms. Barragan, Ms. Johnson of Texas, 
   Mr. Mullin, Ms. Davids of Kansas, Ms. Kamlager-Dove, Mrs. Watson 
   Coleman, Ms. McClellan, Mr. Cleaver, Mr. Carter of Louisiana, Ms. 
 Plaskett, Ms. McCollum, Mr. Olszewski, Ms. Ansari, and Ms. Crockett) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
     on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committees on House 
     Administration, Science, Space, and Technology, Oversight and 
    Government Reform, Financial Services, Ways and Means, Natural 
   Resources, and Homeland Security, for a period to be subsequently 
   determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such 
 provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
   Supporting the designation of September 2025 as ``National Voting 
                            Rights Month''.

Whereas voting is one of the single most important rights that can be exercised 
        in a democracy;
Whereas, over the course of history, various voter suppression laws in the 
        United States have hindered, and even prohibited, certain individuals 
        and groups from exercising the right to vote;
Whereas, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, Native Americans, people who 
        were born to United States citizens abroad, people who spoke a language 
        other than English, and people who were formerly subjected to slavery 
        were denied full citizenship and prevented from voting by English 
        literacy tests;
Whereas, since the 1870s, minority groups, such as Black Americans in the South, 
        have suffered from the oppressive effects of Jim Crow laws that were 
        designed to prevent political, economic, and social mobility;
Whereas Black Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and other 
        underrepresented voters were subject to violence, poll taxes, literacy 
        tests, all-White primaries, property ownership tests, and grandfather 
        clauses designed to suppress the right of those underrepresented 
        individuals to vote;
Whereas, as of 2024, 4,404,000 people in the United States were disenfranchised 
        from voting because of a felony conviction, including 1 in 16 Black 
        adults, due to the shameful entanglement of racial injustice in the 
        criminal justice system and access to voting in the United States;
Whereas members of the aforementioned groups and others are currently subject to 
        intimidation, voter roll purges, and financial barriers that effectively 
        act as modern-day poll taxes;
Whereas, in 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 
        et seq.) in large part to protect the right of Black Americans and other 
        traditionally disenfranchised groups to vote;
Whereas, in 2013, in the landmark case of Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 
        (2013), the Supreme Court invalidated section 4 of the Voting Rights Act 
        of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10303), dismantling the preclearance formula 
        provision that protected voters in States and localities that have 
        historically suppressed the right of minorities to vote by requiring 
        those states to receive preapproval from the Federal Government for 
        changes in voting laws;
Whereas, since the invalidation of the preclearance formula provision of the 
        Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.), gerrymandered 
        districts in many States go unchallenged and are less likely to be 
        invalidated by the courts;
Whereas gerrymandered districts in many States have been found to have a 
        discriminatory impact on traditionally disenfranchised minorities 
        through tactics that include ``cracking'', diluting the voting power of 
        minorities across many districts, and ``packing'', concentrating the 
        power of minority voters into one district to reduce their voting power 
        in other districts;
Whereas the courts have found the congressional and, in some cases, State 
        legislative district maps in Texas, North Carolina, Florida, 
        Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Alabama, and Louisiana to be 
        gerrymandered districts created to favor some groups over others, and 
        State legislatures with Republican majorities are actively working to 
        further gerrymander districts before the next Federal election;
Whereas some States have implemented new voting restrictions that make it more 
        difficult to vote, including cutbacks in the availability of early 
        voting, voter roll purges, placement of faulty equipment in minority 
        communities, requirement of photo identification, and the elimination of 
        same-day registration;
Whereas those policies could outright disenfranchise or make voting much more 
        difficult for more than 80,000,000 minority, elderly, poor, and disabled 
        voters, among other groups;
Whereas, in 2016, discriminatory laws in North Carolina, Wisconsin, North 
        Dakota, and Texas were ruled to violate the rights of voters and were 
        overturned by the courts;
Whereas the decision of the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 
        529 (2013), calls on Congress to update the formula in the Voting Rights 
        Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.);
Whereas addressing the challenges of administering future elections requires 
        increasing the accessibility of vote-by-mail and other limited-contact 
        options to ensure access to the ballot and the protection of the health 
        and safety of voters, and access to the ballot amid a global pandemic 
        like the public health emergency caused by the Coronavirus Disease 2019;
Whereas Congress must work to combat any attempts to dismantle or underfund the 
        United States Postal Service or obstruct the passage of the mail as 
        blatant tactics of voter suppression and election interference;
Whereas, following the 2020 elections, there has been a relentless attack on the 
        right to vote with more than 400 bills introduced and at least 44 bills 
        signed into law in 18 States to restrict the right to vote;
Whereas there is much more work to be done to ensure all citizens of the United 
        States have the right to vote through free, fair, and accessible 
        elections, and Congress must exercise its constitutional authority to 
        protect the right to vote;
Whereas National Voter Registration Day in 2025 is Tuesday, September 16; and
Whereas September 2025 would be an appropriate month--

    (1) to designate as ``National Voting Rights Month''; and

    (2) to ensure that, through the registration of voters and awareness of 
elections, the democracy of the United States includes all citizens of the 
United States: Now, therefore, be it

    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) expresses support for a ``National Voting Rights 
        Month'';
            (2) encourages all people in the United States to uphold 
        the right of every citizen to exercise the sacred and 
        fundamental right to vote;
            (3) encourages Congress to pass--
                    (A) the Freedom to Vote Act (H.R. 11, S. 1, 118th 
                Congress), to set national standards to expand voter 
                registration and voting access, advance election 
                integrity reforms, and protect the democracy of the 
                United States;
                    (B) the Democracy Restoration Act of 2023 (H.R. 
                4987, S. 1677, 118th Congress), to restore Federal 
                voting rights to citizens after release from 
                imprisonment, honoring the responsibilities of 
                citizenship and civic engagement necessary for building 
                healthy and safe communities while welcoming the civic 
                contributions of people returning home after 
                imprisonment; and
                    (C) other voting rights legislation that seeks to 
                advance voting rights and protect elections in the 
                United States;
            (4) recommends that public schools and universities in the 
        United States develop an academic curriculum that educates 
        students about--
                    (A) the importance of voting, how to register to 
                vote, where to vote, and the different forms of voting;
                    (B) the history of voter suppression in the United 
                States before and after passage of the Voting Rights 
                Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.); and
                    (C) current measures that are restricting the right 
                to vote;
            (5) expresses appreciation for the United States Postal 
        Service for issuing a special Representative John R. Lewis 
        stamp--
                    (A) to honor the life and legacy of Representative 
                John R. Lewis in supporting voting rights; and
                    (B) to remind people in the United States that 
                ordinary citizens risked their lives, marched, and 
                participated in the great democracy of the United 
                States so that all citizens would have the fundamental 
                right to vote; and
            (6) invites Congress to allocate the requisite funds for 
        public service announcements on television, radio, newspapers, 
        magazines, social media, billboards, buses, and other forms of 
        media--
                    (A) to remind people in the United States when 
                elections are being held;
                    (B) to share important registration deadlines; and
                    (C) to urge people to get out and vote.
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