Ranking Member Scanlon Convenes Spotlight Hearing with National Experts on Defending the Right to Vote

This press release from Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) was published on 2026-09-24 and titled "Ranking Member Scanlon Convenes Spotlight Hearing with National Experts on Defending the Right to Vote".

Ranking Member Scanlon Convenes Spotlight Hearing with National Experts on Defending the Right to Vote

Washington, D.C. — Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (PA-05), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, this week convened a shadow hearing to reinforce for the American people the importance and resiliency of our elections and the safeguards in place to protect the right to vote ahead of November’s midterm elections. The shadow hearing, titled “ Protecting Democracy: Defending the Right to Vote ,” convened as the Trump administration continues to undermine voting rights by pushing election integrity misinformation and voter suppression laws to disenfranchise voters. Over the past year and a half, Americans have overwhelmingly rejected the Trump administration’s policies through public opinion polls and special elections, yet the administration continues to sow division and stoke fear and confusion to prevent the American people from casting ballots that reject its policies of chaos, corruption, and division. To provide transparency ahead of the November midterms, a panel of expert witnesses shared critical information about the origins of the right to vote, voter education, and election security to reassure Members in attendance, and the American people, that their votes in November’s midterm election are safe and secure. Members of Congress joining the hearing included Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD-08), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Joe Morelle (NY-25), Ranking Member of the Committee on House Administration, Rep. Don Beyer (VA-08), Rep. Glenn Ivey (MD-04), and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX-30). The members heard testimony from Michael Waldman, President and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, Jessica Jones Capparell, Director of Government Affairs at the League of Women Voters of the United States, and Alysoun McLaughlin, former Deputy Elections Director for Montgomery County, Maryland, and Director of the Election Resilience Lab at the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement. The hearing builds on a shadow hearing Ranking Member Scanlon led last week at Widener University in Chester, PA alongside Ranking Member Morelle. That hearing focused upon the Supreme Court’s ruling rejecting the President’s attempt to interfere with vote-by-mail as unlawful, and election security in the Keystone State. Experts at both hearings expressed confidence that American elections are secure and accurate, and urged voters to exercise their right and responsibility to participate in America’s democratic elections in order to express their views. Below are Ranking Member Scanlon’s remarks at this week’s hearing. WATCH Ranking Member Scanlon’s full opening statement. WATCH a recorded livestream of the event here. I would like to start by thanking my colleagues and our expert witnesses for joining us here today. I’m eager to hear from our experts about the security and resilience of our election systems and how we can best protect the right to vote. This topic is timely as rich and powerful forces, including many in the Trump administration, actively seek to undermine voters’ voices with untruths and unconstitutional attacks that could disenfranchise significant numbers of our fellow citizens. As our country has sought to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice, a constant part of that effort has been expanding access to the ballot. We’ve seen that from the very birth of our nation as our founders rejected the monarchy and claimed the right to determine their own destiny in a democratic republic. That effort continued as the right to vote expanded to those who are not property owners, those who were formerly enslaved or subjugated, to women, to those denied access to the ballot by Jim Crow laws, and to citizens under the age of 21. At each step of the way, we’ve seen opposition by those in power—those who consider themselves elite—and who would lose power if they allowed others to participate in our government. That includes the king and nobility in 1776, slaveholders during the Civil War, men when women were granted suffrage, white plantation and business owners in the South, and politicians who sent young men to war in Vietnam. Those who stand to lose power have always tried to keep it in their grip. The situation now is the same. The rich and powerful who have had a death grip on our government through lax campaign finance laws and the Supreme Court’s curtailment of rights are desperate to cling to power. This is not the way of leaders. Throughout our history, U.S. presidents have been at the forefront of expanding and ensuring access to the ballot, whether it was George Washington leading the fight to establish a democracy, Abraham Lincoln fighting to free those enslaved, John F. Kennedy and LBJ joining forces with civil rights leaders, or each time the Voting Rights Act was extended with bipartisan support. Up until now, it has always been assumed that a president would support the Department of Justice’s enf