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FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT TO VOTE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I am here to anchor this Special Order on the fierce urgency of preserving the precious right to vote by passing H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and legislation like H.R. 1, For The People.
I am delighted to be co-anchoring this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order at the request of our tireless leader for justice, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio, and to be joined by my co-anchor, Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York, and many other members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Fifty-six years ago, in a century that was close to a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the rendition of the 15th Amendment, the very right to vote, there we were fighting with this beloved Member of Congress, who challenged us to get into good trouble, fighting in 1965, pursuant to the collapse of the understanding of the 15th Amendment, fighting for the right to vote again.
Madam Speaker, here we are today, 2021, now 56 years after the 1965 Voting Rights Act, fighting for the right to vote.
I want to make sure that I pay tribute to Our Power, Our Message, led by the Honorable Joyce Beatty, who does not only speak her words, but she acts on her words, how proud we were. But I am sure pride is not what she wants us to feel as she walked down this difficult road here in Washington, D.C., to be able to express, with Black women and others, that we have a fierce sense of urgency, and was arrested, just about two weeks ago, in the name of voting rights.
So let me, for a moment, read to you out of the book that has just been published by a dear, beloved friend, ``Carry On.'' I use this book in the Rules Committee, when there seems to have been a challenge to helping the impoverished. I concluded my remarks, when I was giving amendments, to help the impoverished to carry on.
But on the issue of justice, these are his words: ``We must practice what we preach. If we believe in life and liberty, then we should not defer the dream of equality and justice''--the right to vote--``under the law for people of color. We must use the system of government to improve our laws and to make our society fairer and more just. While no one bill can right the many wrongs, we can stitch together partial solutions to deal with the complex societal issues that lead to systemic bias and inequality.''
That is why we stand here today. We are stitching together a response to the collapse of voting rights in America. We are stitching together laws that will deal with the mass of suppression laws being passed in State legislatures across America. We are stitching together a response for those brave Texas Democratic representatives who are here in Washington, D.C., who are begging us to pass H.R. 1 and S. 1 and of course we have passed H.R. 1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
{time} 2015
Let me just briefly say that serious damage to the precious right to vote occasioned by the rightwing conservative majority on the Supreme Court demands that the Congress exercise its powers under section 5 of the 15th Amendment to restore the extraordinary reach and effectiveness of section 2 and section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The 15th Amendment said that no law, no State legislature should abridge the right to vote on the basis of discrimination of race and color and ethnicity and that the Congress should stand up and provide the relief and the answer.
Did you hear, Madam Speaker? The Congress. And the Congressional Black Caucus has said that, not only with their words but with their bodies. Hank Johnson was just arrested last week, Congressman Hank Johnson.
So the objection to the VRA and their opponents is without substance. I have long said that the States that were subject to preclearance under the Voting Rights Act earned their way into so doing by discriminatory laws.
Madam Speaker, June 25, 2021, marked the eighth anniversary of the Supreme Court's infamous decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which immobilized the Department of Justice from subjecting discriminatory voting and election laws to the preclearance.
On August 6 will be the commemoration of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 56 years. And look at the predicament we are in.
Later on in this debate I will recount all the times we voted for the Voting Rights Act. Madam Speaker, it was bipartisan. It was across racial lines, regional lines, because we knew it was the right thing to do.
So tonight we stand on what is right. We stand on good trouble. We stand on making the decision that not the Shelby case, not the Arizona case. The Arizona case is Brnovich v. DNC that dashes section 2, and frankly says, by one of the justices, that a little bit of discrimination is okay. Not on the watch of the Congressional Black Caucus and all of my colleagues, because voting rights belongs to every single person in this Congress and to their constituents.
Why would they want to deny the implementation and the substance of the Constitution and the 15th Amendment?
So here we are tonight to be able to explain to the American public and our colleagues that we cannot wait any longer for H.R. 4 or H.R. 1, S. 1, S. 4, and we are here tonight to tell our story.
It is my pleasure and certainly my privilege, as we continue to tell our story, and as I continue to weave in that story, to yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Beatty), who, again, has spoken with her actions, not just her words, the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, senior member and chairwoman on the Financial Services Committee, and, again, someone who showed the Nation that it is both our message and our power by being arrested in the name of the fight for equality, getting into a little good trouble.
I am sure John Lewis, rest in power, is looking down on us.
Mrs. BEATTY. Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who is coanchor with Congressman Ritchie Torres.
Let me say this: Congresswoman Jackson Lee is at the right place in the right time in history. I thank her for her leadership and her powerful, profound words of talking about not only our late Congressman John Lewis, but talking about why we are here tonight, speaking truth to power, from her own experiences, from her own leadership, from those marches that I have read about and witnessed her in, leading not only individuals from Texas but across this Nation. So I thank her and look forward to hearing her talk about voting rights under attack.
Lastly, let me thank her for quoting from his latest book, ``Carry On.'' Just as it was fitting for her, as a powerful attorney, to talk about justice, in that book he talks about voting rights, and in that book he kept it quite simple. In capital letters, he said: Vote, vote, vote. And stand up for the right of voting, because voting rights belong to all of us and all of our constituents.
Madam Speaker, let me say tonight, I rise and join my colleagues of the Congressional Black Caucus for this Special Order hour on a critically important topic, voting rights.
The Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour is generally regarded as a solemn moment to give the CBC an opportunity to speak directly to the American people and to reflect on the ideas and policies of critical interest to our constituents.
Well, tonight I speak to the people about the right to vote. We are gathered in this sacred Chamber, the floor of the people's House, to discuss the future of voting rights in America, to amplify our power, our message, and to boldly proclaim that we are not going to let the clock be turned back to a time when the votes of Black people were restricted and limited by those who feared our power.
On behalf of the 57 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, I come today to share some thoughts and join my colleagues on this debate on voting rights.
The right to vote is under attack, and some of those attacks have taken place right here in this Chamber, and in other States across the Nation.
So, Madam Speaker, let me be clear to the American people: The Congressional Black Caucus will not sit idly by as State legislatures, fueled by the support of adversaries intent on limiting our access to the ballot box, voter suppression, changing the rules of engagement after we have been victorious. We have the majority in the House, the Senate, and we are building back better with the Biden-Harris administration. To all of those who believe it does not exist, I have a message for you: We won. We stand for the people, because we were elected by the people.
The civil disobedience displayed by the proud Black women and activists, allies, and others just over a week and a half ago that our coanchor talked about, we were there for a reason, organized by good friend and colleague Melanie Campbell, Clayola Brown, Barbara Skinner, the Reverend Barbara Skinner, and so many other women. Well, yes, I was proud to stand with them.
On that day I did reflect back on how many of my CBC colleagues had been arrested and what they fought for that gave me the privilege to stand on this floor tonight. Did I think about John Lewis and did I think about Fannie Lou Hamer and so many more? Yes. Did I think about Rosa Parks and what she did to give us the Montgomery March of 1955 when she sat down that gave us 1964 civil rights, 1965 voting rights, 1968 jobs and housing act, and so much more?
Well, tonight, that is what we are standing here for. We understand, Madam Speaker, that you can't change the future if you don't acknowledge the past. And that is why you will hear us repeatedly talk about the legal cases. You will hear us talking about our rich history. And as much as we embrace it and we love it, we are not going back to it. And that is why we are standing here.
Madam Speaker, I stand with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and coanchor Ritchie Torres. Let me just say tonight, we send a strong message that we are here to pass H.R. 1 and H.R. 4, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We are done waiting. We are done being patient.
If it means we have to speak out, if it means we have to stand up and march and protest, then that is what we will do. The example set by Democrats across the United States, and specifically those members who came here from Texas, we stand with them, because they were forced to come here. Are they making a bold statement? Yes.
But think about it. It has only taken one action, one person to get the attention of the Nation to change things and make it right. And that is what we are doing. When people ask why, why do we stand here and stand up for freedom and justice and our equal rights and to protect our voting rights? Because we know if we don't stand up for ourselves, what will our future be like? What will the future of our children, our grandchildren, and those yet unborn be like? Well, we want to stand up today for H.R. 1, for H.R. 4, so we leave them with a better future.
Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus for her powerful words. And, yes, thank her for acknowledging the women who stood in the gap, including Melanie Campbell and Reverend Barbara Williams Skinner and Clayola Brown, and Tamika, who has been at the forefront as well, and many, many others that have, likewise, been at the forefront. We are pleased to be able to join in their leadership as well.
General Leave
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, let me ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of this Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres), a gentleman who now walks in history, who knows his history, and who is prepared to fight against that history that should never be repeated, my coanchor, who has eloquently articulated what was in General Granger's Order No. 3, and that is the equality of rights.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to be here with Congresswoman Jackson Lee.
The culprit is not only the Republican Party, but it is also the Supreme Court. The rightwing majority on the Supreme Court gave the Voting Rights Act the narrowest possible meaning in order to render it powerless against 21st century voter suppression.
Congress deliberately wrote the Voting Rights Act broadly so as to protect against both obvious and insidious forms of voter disenfranchisement. The broad language of the Voting Rights Act prohibits not only the denial, but also the abridgement of voting rights. It prohibits not only discriminatory intent, but also racially disparate impact. It requires that all methods of voting be equally open to communities of color, and that communities of color have an equal opportunity to cast their ballots.
And so anything that undermines equal openness and equal opportunity is a violation of the Voting Rights Act properly interpreted. I would submit to you that voter suppression in America has no greater ally than rightwing judicial activism.
{time} 2030
Instead of interpreting the Voting Rights Act as written, the rightwing majority on the Supreme Court has chosen to rewrite the statute out of existence. The enforcement mechanisms of the Voting Rights Act have been all but eviscerated. There was section 5, which provided for preclearance, which enabled the executive branch to protect voting rights. Then there was section 2, which provided for litigation, which enabled the courts to protect voting rights.
Both of those enforcement mechanisms had been gutted at the hands of the Supreme Court, the former in Shelby County v. Holder and the latter in Brnovich v. DNC.
We know from history, Madam Speaker, that the most effective tool for preventing voter suppression is preclearance. According to Justice Kagan, from 1965 to 2006, the Federal Government harnessed the power of section 5, the power of preclearance, to prevent 1,200 voting restrictions from taking effect.
We should see the desecration of both section 5 and section 2 as a call to action, as a call for the United States Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would restore our preclearance not only for select jurisdictions but for every State and locality across the Nation.
Let it be known that the greatest obstacle on the path to 21st century voting rights enforcement is the filibuster. The filibuster perpetuates a status quo that disenfranchises communities of color. If you are a defender of the filibuster, then you should dispense with the pretense that you are a champion of voting rights. If you are a defender of the filibuster, you are not part of the solution, but you are part of the problem.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from New York for opening the pathway. We may have him continue to explore that journey, which I will take up, and that is the question of the filibuster. Someone described it as busting things up and busting good things up.
We know that there has to be a solution to those who have argued that, in fact, they are about the institution of the other body; they are about the integrity of the other body. I would argue that where blood has been shed so that people have died so that people might vote, it is not the integrity of the institution. It is the life and death of voting rights, not only for people of color, but for this Nation.
A man who has argued eloquently about the filibuster and a resolve of our next steps, but also recognizes historically, not only the civil rights journey but the fundamental right of voting that should not be hindered or undermined is our majority whip, and we are very grateful for his leadership and his historical perspective and his current understanding of how we have to get the job done.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).
Mr. CLYBURN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me and thank her so much for bringing this issue before the American people.
For several weeks now, we have all heard discussions about various aspects of H.R. 1 and H.R. 4. Now, H.R. 4, as all of us know, has not yet passed the Congress and is now before the Senate.
But I wanted to bring two issues to the forefront here this evening. The first one has to do with the so-called preclearance that we just heard a discussion on. I am serving in the Congress today in large part because of the preclearance in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
But preclearance came into being because of some targeted legislation, legislation targeted toward those States that had a history of discriminating. Therefore, because all the States did not have that kind of a history, we had to go out and develop a record to show that this is the reason these particular States are being targeted. All or parts of seven States were initially covered and, of course, we all know what happened in Shelby County v. Holder.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act was virtually gutted because the formula of section 4 is no longer operative. Therefore, section 5 has really been neutralized, which is the preclearance.
Here is something I want to bring to the attention of the American people, and that is this: If you were to only pass preclearance as it relates to a history of discrimination, we will miss what is happening in the country today. Pennsylvania was not one of those States. Yet, we see massive discrimination in voting being advocated throughout Pennsylvania. The same thing is going on up in Michigan.
Now, according to the studies I have read, 48 States have now put into place or proposed--I think 28 of them have put into place--
restrictive voting laws. Under the standard of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, these States would not be covered. Therefore, it is time for everybody to turn their attention to what we need to do about preclearance.
I submit that preclearance needs to be applied universally to all 50 States, because if you pass preclearance, zeroing in on seven, eight, nine States, and then another State pops up with a new restrictive law, that State would not be covered under preclearance, and I think it is time for us to take a look at that as well.
Madam Speaker, I call upon my friends in the Senate to not wait around for us to develop this record, though I think it is pretty much in place, look at applying preclearance to all 50 States.
The second thing I think that we are needing to begin to think about that is not being discussed is this little thing called nullification; states enacting nullification laws. If you look at the Georgia law that they passed, it is very suppressive. It restricts. The thing that is insulting to me is that little part in there that allows an established commission to overturn the results of an election, to nullify the results of an election. None of us are using that word today, but that word is very prominent when you look at what States are doing.
That violates not just laws as passed by this Congress, that violates the Constitution. The Constitution is very clear. Article I, Section 4 tells us that no State can pass final judgment on federal elections. No State. The best argument for that is sitting right there in The Federalist Papers No. 59. It talks about it and lays out examples as to why the Federal Government cannot allow States to determine the election.
That is why the Supreme Court made it very clear that States could not put term limits on Members of Congress because that is not their purview. When you see nullification laws coming forward, I think it is incumbent upon this Congress to step in and do what is necessary to exert the Constitution of the United States. That is what is at threat here today. That is why I have argued irrespective of what you may feel about filibusters.
Filibusters ought not be applied to anybody's constitutional rights because it will allow a State to give final determination as it relates to federal elections, and that is as unconstitutional as anything that can take place.
Madam Speaker, I think that it is incumbent upon the Federal Government, the Congress, the House of Representatives, and the Senate to do what is necessary to make sure that the United States Constitution still reigns supreme.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina for his comments. He clearly acted, as I indicated, and that is, he presented the history, but he brought us to the 21st century and 2021. I think the challenge that we are now offering to the American people, incredulously, how can anyone try to undermine the votes of any American, and particularly those Americans of color?
As I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina, let me at least just depict for a moment the uniqueness of our history, for this picture is a picture of a whipped, beaten back of a slave. That means that we had extraordinary conditions, extraordinary circumstances. In the 1800s preceding and around the Emancipation Proclamation, I will just read these words as I yield: Congress put forward the 15th Amendment and it made it very clear that:
No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the rights of any citizen of the United States to vote on the account of race, or color, or language minority status.
This was coming out of slavery when they had the 13th Amendment that eliminated slavery but didn't eliminate stigma and institutional racism, gave due process, and then gave the right to vote out of the history of what is depicted here. That is why this is so serious that an institutional rule cannot survive over the right to vote, and the big lie cannot supersede the right to vote.
It is my pleasure to yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina
(Ms. Adams), who is a historian and professor in her own right and spent her life's work teaching at historically Black colleges which were born out of the seeds or born out of the quagmire and the fires of slavery but born to make a difference. She has been a champion for the HBCUs and understands what the denial of the vote and voting rights means to that constituency.
{time} 2045
Ms. ADAMS. Madam Speaker, I thank the coanchor, Sheila Jackson Lee. I thank her for her stellar leadership and all of her diligent work and labor in this vineyard.
To the dynamic coanchor, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres), I thank him so very much.
To our illustrious chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, I am so very proud of her work and very proud of her leadership, and I thank her so much.
Power is what makes the difference in lives and communities. The first thing you have to understand about power and how to get it: You don't ask somebody how to get it, where it is, if you can have it. You take it.
Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about our most fundamental right in a democracy, the power of the vote, the right to vote.
While we have made amazing strides over the past century--votes for women, voting rights for Native Americans and indigenous people, the end of racist Jim Crow laws that completely suppressed the Black votes in certain States, and lowering the voting age to 18--we are still marching because the promise of one person, one vote continues to be abridged by State legislatures across the country.
Marches, sit-ins, and protests are part of our rights as Americans, but we shouldn't have to March 245 years after the Declaration of Independence. We shouldn't have to march 151 years after the 15th Amendment guaranteed Black Americans the right to vote. We shouldn't have to march a full century after women's suffrage.
But we will continue to march, and we will continue to make our voices heard until every adult citizen can freely, fairly, and easily access the ballot. To cast a vote is at the core of what it means to be American. It is how we build a more perfect Union.
Here in the House, we have passed voting rights bills that bring us closer to a more perfect Union. As we await the support of our Senate colleagues on this urgent matter, the issue of voting rights, I want to leave you with this because I have to tell you that, in my State of North Carolina, there is a lot of mischief going on, and there has been for a number of years.
As the gentlewoman knows, my district was considered to be the district that they described as ``surgical precision.'' It continues to be a problem.
I have been a State legislator for 20 years. I have witnessed legislation that targets African Americans with almost surgical precision and imposes cures for problems that did not exist--that is, unless you think African Americans voting is a problem.
Congress cannot tolerate State-level attempts to curb our most fundamental right. Now is the time to make sure that every American who can vote has the opportunity to do so. This is our power, our message.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her pointed message about North Carolina and her district. I think I join her. My district is a voting rights district, so we know what it is to be at the edge of surviving.
The only way that we have survived is with the protection of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. We are living testimony that it is crucial to the vast diversity that has been created in this House on behalf of the American people.
Madam Speaker, let me now take the pleasure of yielding to another distinguished Member who has had her own history in a very unique State.
Someone asked the question: Is it Southern? Is it Northern? I think you only have to hear her--and, of course, the President of the United States, who is a very forthright leader. President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris have been forthright in confronting issues that have been meant to help the American people heal and unite. She has been right in the mix and, as well, has been a leader on labor issues, a leader on healthcare issues. But one thing she knows is the depth of disparity that plagues a community when voting is extinguished.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Delaware (Ms. Blunt Rochester).
Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee for her leadership and the things that she does to protect all of us across the country, not just in her district but across the country. We are greatly indebted to her for her service.
The gentlewoman mentioned me coming from the State of Delaware and whether it is Southern or Northern. Many people might not know, but we are on the Mason-Dixon Line. We are urban, suburban, rural, and coastal. But we are also on that Mason-Dixon Line with that strong history.
Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and her coanchor, Mr. Torres, and I thank our esteemed chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Joyce Beatty.
Madam Speaker, I stand before you tonight with a sense of urgency because the most fundamental and sacred right we have as Americans is under attack.
Across this country, State lawmakers have introduced at least 389 restrictive bills in 48 States just this year, and 14 States have already enacted more restrictive voting laws. Even the highest court in the land is chipping away at this fundamental right.
We know that those who would engage in suppression, subversion, and intimidation are not resting, but neither is the Congressional Black Caucus. Tonight, we are standing up and speaking out because we know that just as our message is our power so, too, is our vote.
I am going to say that again: Our vote is our power.
We are here to protect and defend that right because the vote is tied to everything. The vote is tied to criminal justice reform. The vote is tied to healthcare. The vote is tied to the minimum wage increase across this country and access to affordable childcare. It is tied to the preservation of our democracy. It is tied to our very existence: the ability to drink clean water, breathe air that is free of pollution, and even to have a planet to live on.
Everything is tied to the vote, and the vote is on the line.
While we are fighting a new battle, it is the same old tactics that we have seen before. And it is a future we are not going back to.
Yesterday, we lost another American civil rights leader and educator, Bob Moses. One of the many things that he was known for was Freedom Summer, a project to organize and register voters. Through intimidation and beating, Bob Moses never relented in his mission to register voters in the South.
Sixty years later, it is our turn to answer the question that Bob asked of students, a question that goes to the very core of who we are: What kind of society will we be?
Today, the CBC is here to proclaim loudly and proudly: We will be the kind of society that values every voice, empowers every citizen, and counts every vote because it is all on the line. We must pass and have signed into law H.R. 1, the For the People Act, and H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
In honor of Bob Moses, let's make this the Freedom Summer of our time.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for mentioning Bob Moses.
For those of us who care and know about history, we know about Bob Moses, and it makes this night even more significant because if you are losing the peaceful warriors who helped organize and put themselves on the line, then we must carry on. I thank the gentlewoman from Delaware.
Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 17 minutes remaining.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, let me make an argument regarding where we are, and then I will be happy to yield to my coanchor and happy to conclude.
Madam Speaker, I wanted to reemphasize where we are today and reemphasize that, unfortunately, a bill that had been passed as bipartisan for years has been ``upheavaled'' by the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, a Supreme Court that, as my friend from New York described, is an activist Supreme Court--the Shelby Court and now the Brnovich Court, absolutely wrongheaded decisions.
In Shelby, I believe the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that you don't throw away an umbrella in a rainstorm.
Now, let me characterize these words and not attribute them. I think one of the other points that was made is: Just because polio is not on the rise, you don't get rid of the polio vaccine. Just because you think COVID-19 is gone, you don't throw all manner of precautions to the wind.
Obviously, we see what is happening with this kind of reckless behavior and this kind of red State, blue State discord. People are dying.
That is where we are with voting rights. The Shelby case in 2013 just imploded the preclearance, which in actuality says that as you begin to think about a bill that may have these discriminatory impacts, they can be precleared by the Department of Justice and stopped in their tracks. Section 2 says the harm has been done, and you can run into court making the argument that it is discriminatory.
Tragically, all we were left with, before the Brnovich case, was section 2. But here, what has happened in this case that came out of Arizona--a place where the big lie is playing out every day with a false and misleading and disreputable vote count. To my colleague, I don't know what they found yet, but it is certainly one that has no basis in fact.
The Court in Brnovich suggested that they would have something called guideposts--I call them burdens or suggestions--that when reviewing claims that are facially so-called neutral election policy, practice, or voting rule, and it is discriminating, you can look at these aspects.
You can burden us by saying, ``Here is what you look at.'' Are they ordinary burdens or mere inconvenience exception, the size of disparities and burdens imposed by the challenge rule, other opportunities to vote provided by a State's election system.
So, the polls are closed. You can't do a mail ballot. You don't have Souls to the Polls. So, just find some other way to vote.
That is the question. They say, ``other opportunities to vote.'' You close out all the other supporting aspects of voting, and maybe you can get to vote in a snowstorm. Maybe you can get to vote as a military person in battle. Maybe you can show up to the voting poll on election day because that is another opportunity. Maybe you can get on a plane and leave battle to vote. These are the just nonsensical aspects of the Brnovich case.
Legitimate State interests justifying the challenge voting rule--oh, there is a State interest to close your polling locations in minority neighborhoods, to not have places to get a voter ID in eight counties in Texas when you have a law that says you must have a voting ID, or to close out Souls to the Polls, a perfectly legal concept to allow people who work around the clock through a Sunday to go vote. I guess you would tell them to just find another opportunity.
When we were in the middle of COVID-19 and nurses and doctors were working around the clock, Harris County said: We will give you 24-hour voting.
Legally, law enforcement present, machines in order, no fraud detected at all, but you are fighting COVID, and you might not get off until 1 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m.
Yet, this is what the big lie brings about, and then the degree to which a voting rule departs from what was a standard practice when section 2 was amended in 1982.
Now, the crisis of this is that all of this must be run down for you to be able to prevail under section 2, under the Brnovich case.
Taken together, this Supreme Court cabal is saying to racial, ethnic, and language minorities already intimidated--and you need to look at what John Lewis faced in 1965, this brunt force, law enforcement on horses chasing foot soldiers back over the bridge, 8-year-olds running for their lives, and bloodied older persons, foot soldiers, and John Robert Lewis, who said he thought he was going to die.
{time} 2100
That is what sacrifice has been made for voting. Taken together, this court decision is saying: What is the big deal? It is only voting. Just like with bad weather, sometimes you just have to grin and bear it and have a little inconvenience. Just a little bit of discrimination. Why are you concerned about that?
And so I assume that without the 24th amendment, that this conservative majority and the court will subject poll taxes and literacy tests to the review standard enunciated in Brnovich. Just a little bit of inconvenience. Take that money out and pay that poll tax. You don't have any money? I guess your fundamental right to vote has just been extinguished.
That is where we are today. That is why we are here today challenging the filibuster, speaking about the Federalist papers nullification, and trying to understand that the Constitution prevails over all of these miserly bills across the Nation. The 15th amendment and then the Constitution statement, very clearly says that Congress, that no one can nullify or stop your rights as a person that is elected to Congress because they have no rights.
Madam Speaker, I include in the Record an article, an op-ed, that I submitted on June 26, 2021, authored by myself.
Where GOP Lawmakers Have Passed New Voting Restrictions Around the
Country
Republican state legislators have introduced hundreds of bills that would tighten access to voting around the country, many of them echoing former president Donald Trump's false claims that loose election laws allowed fraud to taint the 2020 White House race.
The groundswell began early this year with the introduction of 253 bills proposing voting restrictions across 43 states as of mid-February, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. That number rose to at least 389 bills in 48 states as of mid-May.
The national spotlight is now on Texas after Democratic lawmakers left the state on July 12 in an effort to block passage of one of the most stringent new voting measures in the country. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said the members could face arrest when they return, which is not expected until the state's special legislative session concludes--potentially as late as Aug. 7.
Across the country, 17 states have enacted laws this year that tighten the rules around casting ballots and running elections, according to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, which tracks developments in state election law.
Many of the bills target mail voting and other policies that helped safeguard the franchise during the coronavirus pandemic and produce the highest turnout among American voters in more than a century.
Some of the bills also seek to curtail early voting, impose restrictions on voter registration efforts, limit the power of local officials to oversee elections and stop private donors from supplementing their operational budgets.
Democratic-controlled states have moved in the other direction, approving measures to formalize more permissive voting policies from 2020, complementing proposed federal legislation to protect voting rights with a set of national standards.
In addition to the states listed below, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming have also passed laws with restrictive language.
STATES WITH SIGNIFICANT NEW VOTING RESTRICTIONS
Arizona--Enacted May 11 and June 30
Republicans in Arizona changed the state's popular Permanent Early Voting List, which determines who receives mail ballots each election cycle.
The new rules mean voters who do not cast a ballot at least once every two years will have to respond to a government notice to avoid being removed from the list and to continue getting a ballot in the mail.
Another measure, signed into law on June 30, stripped power from Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, allowed third parties designated by the legislature to flag ineligible voters for removal from the rolls and provided funds for election security and post-election recounts.Florida--Enacted May 6
New state law signed May 6 institutes a number of changes, including requiring voters to renew their mail voting application every two years and to submit a form of identification.
With some exceptions, voters' access to drop boxes for returning mail ballots will be limited to early voting hours, a maximum of 12 hours per day.
If any drop box is found to be accessible outside of these hours, the local supervisor of elections could be subject to a civil penalty of $25,000.
Voters will be permitted to drop off only two ballots for nonfamily members.
The law gives partisan election observers more access to the ballot counting process.
It also prevents behavior undertaken with the ``intent'' of influencing a voter, so the law is likely to bar efforts to provide food and water to people waiting in line to cast in-person ballots.
Donations to election budgets from private individuals are also not allowed.Georgia--Enacted March 25
Georgia's new voting law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on March 25 imposes a number of restrictions on voting in the state, earning it comparisons to the Jim Crow laws that effectively blocked Black men and women from voting in the American South.
Specifically, the rules prevent proactively sending mail ballot applications to voters, require voters to submit identification with their application to be approved and shorten the time frame for the application process to take place.
Like several other states, Georgia added new restrictions on the use of mail ballot drop boxes and prohibited providing food or water to people waiting in line to vote in person. Legislators also stripped certain powers from the secretary of state, removing that official as chair of the State Election Board and allowing the General Assembly to select his or her replacement.Iowa--Enacted March 8
New Iowa voting law shortens the application period for mail ballots and bars election officials from proactively sending application forms to voters.
County auditors can face criminal charges if they do not follow certain procedures in purging voter rolls.
The early voting period--and voting hours on Election Day are shorter.
Local officials' discretion in placing drop boxes is curtailed.
What to watch in coming weeks
Texas
One of the most restrictive voting bills in the country was defeated--at least temporarily--in Texas on May 30, when a Democratic walkout in the state House caused the chamber to miss the deadline for passage.
The GOP bills would empower partisan poll watchers and impose stiff penalties on election administrators for actions such as sending unsolicited mail ballot applications to voters.
Comparing the legislation to Jim Crow laws, critics have said it would disproportionately affect people of color.
The measures would prohibit drive-up voting and other methods used widely by Black and Latino voters in Houston to cast ballots during the coronavirus pandemic, as well as create strict signature-matching rules that could force the rejection of valid votes cast by mail.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres), my co-anchor, and I thank him again for his joining me tonight, and for our journey that we are on trying to raise up justice in this country.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, both the 2020 and 2021 election cycles have been a powerful testament to the influence of the Black vote.
I proudly come from New York State where we have seen a golden age of Black political power: the attorney general, the State Senate majority leader, the State assembly speaker, the mayor, are all Black.
And we know that but for the Black vote, President Biden would have never won the Presidency, and the Democrats never would have won a majority in the Senate. And the attempts at voter suppression that we have seen threatens to reverse the racial progress that has been made.
Increasingly, we are becoming a multiracial democracy. You know, 70 percent of the Democratic Caucus consists of people of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ community. But you would never know that from the structure of the Senate. The structure of the Senate concentrates power in a small subset of States that are much Whiter, much more rural, much more conservative than the rest of the country.
Before the Democratic party won the Senate in 2021, the Senate Republican majority represented 10 to 15 million fewer people than the Senate Democratic minority. And the problem is that the filibuster takes the undemocratic structure of the Senate to an even greater extreme.
The notion that one Senator, who represents a State smaller than our congressional districts, should have the power to overturn the will of the President and the Senate and the House, is profoundly undemocratic. It makes an absurdity of the democratic process.
One particularly egregious example of the filibuster can be found in the area of gun safety. In a rational world, every gun would be registered and safely stored. Every gun owner would be licensed and trained. Every gun sale would be subject to a background check.
But there is nothing rational about a political system that enables one Senator from a State smaller than my congressional district to filibuster gun safety at the expense of 330 million Americans.
Name any cause: LGBTQ equality, voting rights enforcement, immigration reform, democracy reform, criminal justice reform, all of these causes have died at the hands of the filibuster.
I would submit to you that we have a party in America that is intent on holding power at any cost and by any means necessary. If the Republican party cannot win democratically, then it will insist on winning undemocratically through voter suppression, gerrymandering, the structure of the Senate, the electoral college, right-wing judicial activism on the Supreme Court. All of these are means of holding onto power by any means necessary. All of these are means of subverting democracy at any cost. That is the challenge that lies before us.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York. I am so glad he said the words ``by any means necessary.'' That is striking, and without a doubt, the approach of the activist Supreme Court, right-wing, of the big lies, and of those who wish to stall and stop the very lifeline of American democracy, and that is the right of each person to vote their conscious.
As we have said: Our message, our power; but our voice, our vote; our vote, our voice. And I thank him for joining me this evening for elaborating and detailing and roll-calling where we are today.
I notice the gentleman did not step in the breach and indicate that we might need to expand the Court. That is another discussion altogether.
Madam Speaker, I am delighted to yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. Bush), a member of the Judiciary Committee. I think she can speak in her own way on the vitality of a vote for poor people.
Ms. BUSH. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairwoman for this moment to be able to address about something that I still have trouble understanding the need to address when people fell, when people bled, when people died, and we are still here. And all of that happened, so much of it happened before I was even born, even thought of, and we are still here.
So, St. Louis and I, we rise today, because in Missouri our right to vote is being taken away. Taken away from many of us. And by us, let me be clear that I mean Black folks, I mean Brown folks, I mean Indigenous folks.
{time} 2110
Despite the raising of our voices, despite the marching of our feet, and despite our turning out the vote to deliver the government to Democrats, the Senate has yet to do anything about it. H.R. 1 is gathering dust in the Senate, and the filibuster remains intact. With every passing day, the reality of the situation worsens.
Yet, rather than acting with urgency, some have even suggested instead we want to out-organize voter suppression. After an election year when Black, Brown, and indigenous organizers gave their blood, their sweat, and their tears to deliver a Democratic House, Senate, and White House. A year when Black women turned the longtime red State of Georgia blue. When Black, Brown, and indigenous voters stood in disproportionately long lines to cast their ballots on an election day that is not a Federal holiday. A year when Black, Brown, and indigenous communities have been disproportionately harmed by this pandemic, yet turned out in the face of these suppression tactics to vote in record numbers.
We did this because we were promised justice. We were promised that our right to vote would be secure, and we were promised a sustainable future.
But rather than deliver on these promises, we were asked again to give our blood, our sweat, and our tears?
To those who say just out-organize rather than legislate, I say shame. Shame, Madam Speaker, that you take our labor for granted. Shame that you take our struggle for granted, and shame that your promises continue to go unfulfilled. Like my chairwoman said, we have people who are living, struggling, burdened, and oppressed in ways that others aren't, and are the ones who suffer the most.
Shame that rather than doing everything within your power, Madam Speaker, to deliver us the future, we are being asked to overcome voter suppression again.
To those who are telling us just to out-organize voter suppression, my message to you is this: We already did.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the gentlewoman. Madam Speaker, thank you for recognizing me to anchor this Special Order on the fierce urgency of preserving the precious right to vote by passing H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and legislation like H.R. 1, the For The People Act.
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July 26, 2021, on page H3897, the following appeared: Thank you, Madam Speaker for recognizing
The online version has been corrected to read: Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the gentlewoman. Madam Speaker, thank you for recognizing
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I am delighted to be co-anchoring this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order at the request of our tireless leader for justice, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio, and to be joined by co-anchor, Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York, and many members of the CBC.
Before I begin, Madam Speaker, let me share some history and important numbers with our colleagues and the nation that show for most of the past 56 years, support for the Voting Rights Act and protecting, preserving, and expanding the right to vote of all Americans has been an issue that Americans have supported in overwhelming numbers all across the nation.
On July 9, 1965, House passed the Voting Rights Act by a 333-85 vote, with Democrats voting 221-61 and Republicans 112-24.
House later approved the VRA conference report on August 3 by a 328-
74 vote (Democrats 217-54, Republicans 111-20).
The Senate passed the VRA on August 4 by a 79-18 vote, with Democrats voting 49-17 and Republicans 30-1.
This landmark legislation, P.L. 89-10, was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson as on August 6, 1965.
Five years later, on June 22, 1970, the VRA was renewed for five years as Public Law 91-285, passing the House by a vote of 272-132 and the Senate by a vote of 64-12.
Five years later, on June 4, 1975, Congress extended the VRA for seven years, enacting Public Law 94-73, with majorities of 341-70 in the House and 77-12 in the Senate.
On June 29, 1982, a Republican-controlled Senate joined with a Democratic House to pass Public Law 97-205, extending the VRA for 10 years, with the vote in the Senate of 85-8 and the vote in the House of 389-24.
Ten years later, the bipartisan Voting Rights Language Assistance Act was passed as Public Law 102-344 on August 26, 1992.
And on July 27, 2006, the Voting Rights Act was extended for 25 years when the Congress passed Public Law 109-246 (H.R. 9), the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006.
The vote for H.R. 9 was 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate.
Madam Speaker, every extension of the Voting Rights Act recounted above was signed into law by a Republican President, from Richard Nixon to Gerald Ford to Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.
This chain of bipartisan support for voting rights stood solid and unbreakable until the Supreme Court's horrendous decision in Shelby County v. Holder 570 U.S. 529 (2013).
PROTECTING AND PRESERVING VOTING RIGHTS
Madam Speaker, the serious damage to the precious right to vote occasioned by the right-wing, conservative majority on the Supreme Court demands that Congress exercise its powers under Section 5 of the 15th Amendment to restore the extraordinary reach and effectiveness of Section 2 and Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
As an aside, Madam Speaker, on the objection of VRA opponents to states subject preclearance having the burden to bail themselves out, I have long said that the states that were subject to preclearance under the Voting Rights Act earned their way in, so it only fitting that they earn their way out.
Madam Speaker, June 25, 2021, marked the 8th anniversary of the Supreme Court's infamous decision in Shelby County v Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), which immobilized the Department of Justice from subjecting discriminatory voting and election law changes to prior review and approval, or ``preclearance.''
It was predicted at the time by me and other defenders of the precious right to vote that the Court's misguided and naive decision would usher in a wave of state and local initiatives intended to suppress and nullify the rights of black Americans, persons of color, young adults, and marginalized communities to exercise the most basic act in the political process: voting.
As we have seen in recent months, this prediction has tragically come to pass.
Not to be content with the monument to disgrace that is the Shelby decision, the activist right-wing conservative majority on the Roberts Court, on July 1, 2021, issued its evil twin, the decision in the Arizona case of Brnovoich v. DNC, 594 U.S. _, No. 19-1257 and 19-1258
(July 1, 2021), which engrafts on Section 2 of the Voting Rights onerous burdens that Congress never intended and explicitly legislated against to ensure that:
``No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or language minority status.''
Among these burdens, couched as ``guideposts,'' or ``suggestions'' are that when reviewing claims that a facially neutral election law, policy, practice, or voting rule has a discriminator, and therefore unlawful, effect on minority citizens, courts are to consider the following matters:
1. An ``ordinary burdens'' or ``mere inconvenience'' exception;
2. Size of disparities in burdens imposed by the challenged rule;
3. Other opportunities to vote provided by a state's election system;
4. Legitimate state interests justifying the challenged voting rule; and
5. The degree to which a voting rule departs from what was standard practice when Section 2 was amended in 1982
Taken together, this Supreme Court cabal is saying to racial, ethnic, and language minorities: ``What's the big deal, it's only voting. Just like with bad weather, sometimes you just have grin and bear a little inconvenience.''
This Supreme Court majority has simply never understood, or refuses to accept, the fundamental importance of the right to vote, free of discriminatory hurdles and obstacles.
Madam Speaker, were it not for the 24th Amendment, I venture to say that this conservative majority on the Court would subject poll taxes and literacy tests to the review standard enunciated in Brnovich v. DNC.
Their predecessors on the Court understood this, going back at least as far as 1938, when the Supreme Court held in Chief Justice Hughes' famous Footnote 4 in United States v. Carolene Products, 304 U.S. 144
(1938), that government action alleged to discriminate against
``discrete and insular minorities'' would be subject to ``strict scrutiny'' by reviewing courts.
Madam Speaker, you might be asking who are these ``discrete and insular minorities'' about whom the Court was referring?
The answer is they were and are persons ``excluded from ``those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect'' them, racial and language minorities, and aliens, all of whom were denied the single most important tool for protecting and advancing one's interests in a democracy: the right to vote.
I ask unanimous consent to include in the record of this hearing, a June 26, 2021 op-ed authored by me entitled ``A Strong Voting Rights Act Is Needed Now More Than Ever.''
It is useful, Madam Speaker, to recount how we arrived at this day.
Madam Speaker, fifty-six years ago, in Selma, Alabama, hundreds of heroic souls risked their lives for freedom and to secure the right to vote for all Americans by their participation in marches for voting rights on ``Bloody Sunday,'' ``Turnaround Tuesday,'' or the final, completed march from Selma to Montgomery.
Those ``foot soldiers'' of Selma, brave and determined men and women, boys and girls, persons of all races and creeds, loved their country so much that they were willing to risk their lives to make it better, to bring it even closer to its founding ideals.
The foot soldiers marched because they believed that all persons have dignity and the right to equal treatment under the law, and in the making of the laws, which is the fundamental essence of the right to vote.
On that day, Sunday, March 7, 1965, more than 600 civil rights demonstrators, including our beloved former colleague, the late Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, were brutally attacked by state and local police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge as they marched from Selma to Montgomery in support of the right to vote.
``Bloody Sunday'' was a defining moment in American history because it crystallized for the nation the necessity of enacting a strong and effective federal law to protect the right to vote of every American.
No one who witnessed the violence and brutally suffered by the foot soldiers for justice who gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge will ever forget it; the images are deeply seared in the American memory and experience.
On August 6, 1965, in the Rotunda of the Capitol and in the presence of such luminaries as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Ralph Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Roy Wilkins of the NAACP; Whitney Young of the National Urban League; James Foreman of the Congress of Racial Equality; A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; John Lewis of the Student Non-
Violent Coordinating Committee; Senators Robert Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and Everett Dirksen; President Johnson addressed the nation before signing the Voting Rights Act: ``The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.''
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was critical to preventing brazen voter discrimination violations that historically left millions of African Americans disenfranchised.
In 1940, for example, there were less than 30,000 African Americans registered to vote in Texas and only about 3 percent of African Americans living in the South were registered to vote.
Poll taxes, literacy tests, and threats of violence were the major causes of these racially discriminatory results.
After passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, which prohibited these discriminatory practices, registration and electoral participation steadily increased to the point that by 2012, more than 1.2 million African Americans living in Texas were registered to vote.
In 1964, the year before the Voting Rights Act became law, there were approximately 300 African-Americans in public office, including just three in Congress.
Few, if any, African Americans held elective office anywhere in the South.
Because of the Voting Rights Act, in 2007 there were more than 9,100 black elected officials, including 46 members of Congress, the largest number ever.
Madam Speaker, the Voting Rights Act opened the political process for many of the approximately 6,000 Hispanic public officials that have been elected and appointed nationwide, including more than 275 at the state or federal level, 32 of whom serve in Congress.
Native Americans, Asians and others who have historically encountered harsh barriers to full political participation also have benefited greatly.
As I indicated, the crown jewel of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is Section 5, which requires that states and localities with a chronic record of discrimination in voting practices secure federal approval before making any changes to voting processes.
Section 5 has protected minority voting rights where voter discrimination has historically been the worst.
Between 1982 and 2006, Section 5 stopped more than 1,000 discriminatory voting changes in their tracks, including 107 discriminatory changes right here in Texas.
Passed in 1965 with the extraordinary leadership of President Lyndon Johnson, the greatest legislative genius of our lifetime, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was bringing dramatic change in many states across the South.
But in 1972, change was not coming fast enough or in many places in Texas.
In fact, Texas, which had never elected a woman to Congress or an African American to the Texas State Senate, was not covered by Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the language minorities living in South Texas were not protected at all.
But thanks to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the tireless voter registration work performed in 1972 by Hillary Clinton in Texas, along
``With hundreds of others, including her future husband Bill, Barbara Jordan was elected to Congress, giving meaning to the promise of the Voting Rights Act that all citizens would at long last have the right to cast a vote for person of their community, from their community, for their community.
Madam Speaker, it is a source of eternal pride to all of us in Houston that in pursuit of extending the full measure of citizenship to all Americans, in 1975 Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who also represented this historic 18th Congressional District of Texas, introduced, and the Congress adopted, what are now Sections 4(f)(3) and 4(f)(4) of the Voting Rights Act, which extended the protections of Section 4(a) and Section 5 to language minorities.
During the floor debate on the 1975 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, Congresswoman Jordan explained why this reform was needed:
``There are Mexican-American people in the State of Texas who have been denied the right to vote; who have been impeded in their efforts to register and vote; who have not had encouragement from those election officials because they are brown people.
``So, the state of Texas, if we approve this measure, would be brought ``within the coverage of this Act for the first time.''
When it comes to extending and protecting the precious right to vote, the Lone Star State--the home state of Lyndon Johnson and Barbara Jordan--could be the leading state in the Union, one that sets the example for the nation.
But to realize that future, Texas must turn from and not return to the dark days of the past.
By embracing the discriminatory Texas SB7 and the ``Big Lie'' that the 2020 election, by all accounts adjudged the most secure and inclusive in American history, was riven by voter fraud, Texas Republicans are making the wrong choice to their eternal shame.
Texans must remain ever vigilant and oppose all schemes that will abridge or dilute the precious right to vote, like the odious Texas SB7 recently passed by the Texas State Senate but killed, but not yet permanently, by the unity and courage of Democrats in the Texas State House of Representatives.
Madam Speaker, I applaud the House Democrats of the Texas General Assembly for being on the front lines, fighting in opposition to Texas SB7 on the House floor and I join with them in calling upon the U.S. Senate to eliminate the filibuster and to bring to the floor for debate and vote--so Congress can pass--H.R. 1 and H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
We must all do our part to preserve this most important heritage because it was earned with the sacrifices and the lives of our ancestors.
The right to vote is a ``powerful instrument that can break down the walls of injustice'' and must be protected against attack from all enemies, foreign and domestic, using all the legal tools at our disposal.
Madam Speaker, the right to vote and to participate meaningfully in civic and political affairs has done more to advance the cause of freedom, justice, and equality than the Second Amendment has ever done, if it has done anything at all.
It is time the Congress act to protect and expand the right to vote, the only right that is preservative of every other right.
Madam Speaker, I include in the Record an article titled ``John Lewis leaves behind a powerful legacy of social justice.''
John Lewis Leaves Behind a Powerful Legacy of Social Justice
(By Peniel E. Joseph)
On July 17, congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis died at 80, on the same day as 95-year-old stalwart C.T. Vivian, Martin Luther King's favorite preacher. Both leave behind a legacy of social justice activism that played a pivotal role in some of the most resounding victories of the civil rights movement: America's Second Reconstruction.
Lewis's death comes at a critical moment in U.S. history, amid a moral and political reckoning on black dignity and citizenship that represents nothing less than a Third American Reconstruction. And his life provides lessons for activists today on how to confront racial violence, forge productive alliances and transform American democracy.
Born in 1940 in Troy, Ala., to a family of sharecropping farmers, the deeply religious Lewis joined the movement for black dignity and citizenship as a student activist in Nashville. Already enthralled by the dazzling oratory of the young Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis enjoyed an unusual kind of political apprenticeship under the mentorship of an array of movement leaders. He learned the practical application of nonviolent civil disobedience from the Rev. James Lawson and became fast friends with fellow student activists such as Diane Nash. Ella Baker, founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced ``snick''), played a critical role in convincing students such as Lewis that they--and not just King and older generations of preachers--could play pivotal leadership roles in an unfolding national drama.
Lewis's calm demeanor, personal sincerity and outward humility made him a quiet star among student leaders. He was arrested dozens of times for civil rights activism between 1960 and 1966. In 1961, he joined hundreds of volunteers on Freedom Rides, traveling throughout the Jim Crow South to challenge segregated bus terminals. On May 14, 1961, Lewis experienced a vicious beating at the hands of a white mob as a Freedom Rider in Anniston, Ala. It was the first of many brutal experiences he endured as an activist, and such punishment bolstered Lewis's political resolve to defeat racial segregation.
Elected chairman of SNCC in 1963, Lewis became the youngest national civil rights leader of the 1960s. At 23, he was the youngest speaker at the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Although parts of the collectively written speech were abandoned after objections from white allies in the movement, Lewis prepared the nation for continued racial combat in the service of justice. ``By the force of our demands, our determination and our numbers, we shall splinter the desegregated South into a thousand pieces and pull them back together in the image of God and democracy,'' he argued.
Lewis effectively navigated between student militants in SNCC--which craved transformational political change radical enough to protect black life in the Mississippi Delta and Alabama black belt--and more pragmatic civil rights leaders who viewed the Democratic Party as the most effective vehicle for widespread social change. In 1964, Lewis encountered Malcolm X while touring Africa in hopes of forging international alliances to strengthen domestic black freedom struggles and came away from his meeting impressed with the black nationalist icon's willingness to explore political alliances with civil rights leaders.
On March 7, 1965, Lewis, dressed in a crisp white shirt, tie, raincoat and backpack, joined several hundred demonstrators crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., who were routed by blue-helmeted state troopers. The violence that afternoon left Lewis with permanent scars on his head. But the activists' resolve in the face of violent opposition helped trigger the moral and political outrage that led to the passage of voting rights legislation. Lewis's involvement at that moment made visible to the whole nation the violent, racist dehumanization of black people.
In May 1966, Stokely Carmichael, the charismatic Howard University activist and friend turned organizational rival, replaced Lewis as SNCC chairman. Carmichael's call for
``Black Power!'' the next month during a civil rights demonstration in Mississippi helped to transform the aesthetics of the black freedom struggle. Lewis completed his college degree at Fisk University at the moment when Black Power activists were calling for a dramatic and radical restructuring of American democracy. The political vision of Black Power activists, despite political disagreements with Carmichael and SNCC, inspired Lewis, who used the racial solidarity forged in the crucible of the movement as a springboard to political office.
As the radical hopes of the 1960s faded in the aftermath of King's assassination on April 4, 1968, Lewis turned to electoral politics. In 1986, he won the Georgia congressional seat he would hold until his death in an ugly political battle with Julian Bond, the charismatic SNCC activist and former friend turned bitter adversary. Over the next 34 years, Lewis went from staring down the forces of white supremacy at bus stations and bridges to confronting these same adversaries in the U.S. Congress. Bringing organizing skills learned as an activist and radical ideas about transforming American life, he fought valiantly for health-care, gun-control and anti-poverty legislation. During the late 1980s and 1990s as the nation turned away from the vision of the ``Beloved Community'' outlined at the March on Washington, Lewis advocated for a return to the anti-poverty and anti-racist policies that briefly flourished during the 1960s.
The American political establishment, over time, caught up with his accomplishments. Barack Obama's watershed presidential election proved a boon to Lewis's political legacy, with the first black president acknowledging the congressman's towering achievements with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lewis recognized Obama's ascent as part of a political harvest reaped from the bloodstained sacrifices of earlier generations.
Lewis understood that those struggles for black dignity and citizenship continued during his lifetime. He embraced the Black Lives Matter movement, including the recent national and global protests for racial justice and equality in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing at the hands of police.
``It is so much more massive and all-inclusive,'' Lewis noted of Black Lives Matter. Whereas black women, including those who helped to nurture Lewis and lead the movement, were excluded from speaking at the March on Washington in 1963, he marveled to witness the prominence of black women in the BLM movement--as featured leaders, organizers and strategists. As an elder statesman within political and civil rights circles, Lewis continued to encourage the young to lead a movement he recognized as continuing into our own time.
Lewis's extraordinary life offers important lessons for contemporary generations organizing for black equality in America and around the world. His example teaches us that movements for racial justice have always been denigrated by authorities and been targets of violence by political, legislative and military bodies. Young people who refused to heed the warnings of an older generation helped to transform American democracy, but they received crucial mentoring from a council of elders who believed, like Baker, that strong people did not require charismatic top-down patriarchal leadership. To the contrary, young activists could be trusted to ask the right questions that would lead to what Lewis called the ``good trouble'' capable of ending systemic racism, structural violence and white supremacy.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, the right to vote free from intimidation or obstacle is the most precious right of any American citizen, a pillar of our democratic system. And when that right, that pillar, is threatened for anyone, it is a threat to us all--to our democracy and to our very way of life.
For Texans, this fight is personal. Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers in the Texas Legislature introduced a series of new voting laws, yet antiquated in thought, that would restrict access to the polls for people across the state. Unfortunately, we are all too familiar with these types of efforts to strip our right to vote here in Texas. In fact, I remember having to pay a poll tax when I voted in my first election in Dallas. And although these new efforts are not as blatant as a poll tax, they are equally as confining.
These new waves of voter restriction efforts are not new--and neither is the opposition to them. From our late colleague Congressman John Lewis marching across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in 1965, to the extension of the Voting Rights Act in 2006, to the Texas Democrats breaking quorum to prevent the passage of restrictive voting laws this month. It is incumbent upon us to keep alive that opposition to similar efforts, and to inform and inspire the next generation to do the same.
It is in that spirit that I, once again, call on the Senate to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act. We can no longer afford the cost of inaction on this issue. This fight is about the future of Texas, it's about the future of the United States, and it's about the future of democracy.
Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Madam Speaker, this month marked the one-year anniversary of the passing of our dear friend and beloved colleague John Lewis. Sadly, while we reflect upon his legacy, there are efforts underway in State Houses across the nation to turn back the clock and erect barriers to voter participation in elections.
We all know that the premise behind these efforts is a lie--namely, that the 2020 election was stolen and that there was rampant voter fraud. In my home state of Georgia, these falsehoods led to the passage and ultimate enactment of Senate Bill 202, which was given the misleading name, ``the Georgia Civics Renewal Act.'' The lie also provided the impetus for the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6.
The measures being put forward in states like Georgia reduce voter access to the polls under the guise of protecting the vote. Georgia's SB 202 limits drop boxes, imposes ID requirements on absentee voting, restricts early voting on weekends, allows state officials to circumvent the work of election officials if they do not like the results they are seeing, and even makes it a crime to offer food and water to voters waiting in line.
It is a ruse that disproportionately impacts voters whose voices have too often been silenced. Why? Because those voices--African American voices in Georgia--made all the difference in 2020.
The integrity of our elections is enhanced by greater voter participation--not less. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, ``voting is the foundation stone of political action.''
Earlier this year, I co-sponsored H.R. 1, For the People Act, which is a voting and elections bill that protects access, promotes the creation of fairer districts, and supports public financing of campaigns. The legislation passed the House on March 3 by a vote of 220 to 210.
I also supported H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Enhancement Act, which the House had approved last Congress.
H.R. 4 is intended to fix the enforcement provisions of the original Voting Rights Act that were gutted by the Supreme Court in the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision.
The Court's conservative majority held that the formula for determining whether jurisdictions were subject to the law's Justice Department pre-clearance procedure for voting and election changes by state and local governments were outdated. This mostly focused on southern states with a long history of racially discriminatory voter suppression.
Contrary to the court's opinion and since then, hundreds of bills across several state legislatures have been proposed that would make access to the ballot box increasingly difficult for many people--more so for communities of color, students, seniors, and disabled people. Some of these bills have become law.
In many cases, those who are rolling back access to the vote are also involved in the decennial redistricting process in which congressional and state legislative maps will be set until 2032.
These are precisely the kind of decisions the Justice Department was able to scrutinize under the pre-Shelby County Voting Rights Act.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Enhancement Act will rectify this wrong and fine-tune that formula so that the Supreme Court cannot strike it down again.
Madam Speaker, I know that John Lewis is looking down upon us now. If he were here with us today, I know that he would be on the House floor tonight and would be imploring us in that booming voice of his to continue the fight for voting rights to which he devoted his life and career.
It is the same fight for which he endured unspeakable brutality while attempting to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the march from Selma to Montgomery. We cannot turn back now.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 130
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