Senate to convene hearing on US voting laws

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing to examine Americans’ access to the voting booth and the continuing need for protections against efforts to limit or suppress voting. 

On Wednesday, the committee will look at barriers voters experienced in the 2012 election — some reports said voters in Florida waited seven hours to cast their ballots. Democrats have said the some Republican controlled state legislatures passed laws last year that harm voter rights and the results were shown in Election Day failures.

“A spate of recently passed state voting laws seemed designed to restrict voting by making it harder for millions of disabled, young, minority, rural, elderly, homeless, and low income Americans to vote,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “The long-lines, increased use of provisional ballots and changes to voter registration rules in the last elections have raised new and troubling questions about the ability to protect every eligible citizen’s right to vote.”

On Thursday, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee will looking into the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, where four Americans including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, were killed.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is planning to testify before that committee Thursday.

Details on these and other notable Senate hearings follow:

Senate Banking

Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment

- Dec. 18, “Computerized Trading Venues: What Should the Rules of the Road Be?”

9:30 a.m., 538 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection

- Dec. 19, “Making Sense of Consumer Credit Reports”

10 a.m., 538 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development

- Dec. 20, “Superstorm Sandy Recovery: Focusing on Rebuilding our Infrastructure”

11 a.m., 538 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Senate Foreign Affairs

- Dec. 20, “Benghazi: The Attack and the Lessons Learned”

9 a.m., 216 Hart Senate Office Building

Senate Judiciary

- Dec. 19, “The State of the Right to Vote After the 2012 Election”

 10 a.m., 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building

- Dec. 20, “Considering the Nursing Home Resident Pain Relief Act”

10 a.m., 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building

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