Heritage Action corrected the record on Wednesday after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) demonized Georgia state GOP lawmakers for pushing election integrity measures, falsely claiming they are targeting black Americans by “outlaw voting” on Sundays.
“The most reprehensible effort of all might be found in Georgia, where Republicans recently passed a bill to eliminate early voting on Sunday, on Sunday, a day when many churchgoing African Americans participate in voter drives known as souls to the polls,” Schumer said during Wednesday’s Senate Rules and Administration Committee hearing on S. 1, or the “For the People Act.”
“What an astonishing coincidence. Outlaw voting on a day where African American churches sponsor get out the vote efforts. I’d like one of the Republican members on this committee to give us a plain sense justification for that restriction,” Schumer continued.
“No early voting on Sundays. Why did Georgia Republicans outlaw it? Monday through Saturday, legitimate voters show up. But Sunday is voter fraud day. Give me a break,” he sarcastically stated.
Heritage Action took on Schumer following the 70-year-old lawmaker’s remarks, accusing him of making “several false comments about SB 202 going through the Georgia Legislature” and offering a fact check.
In reality, Georgia’s SB 202 allows every Georgia county to have two Sundays of early voting. “In no way does SB202 end ‘souls to the polls,’” Heritage Action said, offering additional facts about the measure, including the fact that it “doubles the amount of early voting on weekends.”
“Currently, state law only requires ONE Saturday of early voting. But SB202 requires TWO Saturdays – and allows counties to do TWO Sundays,” Heritage Action said. “This would allow 116 counties will have MORE hours of early voting”:
Nevertheless, Schumer viciously attacked proponents of basic election integrity measures during Wednesday’s hearing, likening such proposals to the era of Jim Crow.
“Some of these voter suppression laws in Georgia and other Republican states smack of Jim Crow rearing its ugly head once again. It is 160 years since the 13, 14, and 15th amendments abolished slavery, and Jim Crow stills seems to be with us,” Schumer said.
“The laws, their various cousins in Republican state legislatures across the country, are one of the greatest threats we have to modern democracy in America,” the progressive New Yorker continued, ultimately promising that S. 1, which will federalize U.S. elections, “will be a priority in this Congress.”
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who spoke after Schumer, dismissed his colleague’s characterizations, explaining that the measures referenced have “absolutely nothing to do with suppressing the vote.”