Political Quotes

“Today I proudly rise to support the rule on H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019. Voting rights are primal. They are the cornerstone of our democracy. No right is more precious to our citizenship than the right of all Americans to be able to vote. When Americans are not able to cast their ballots, their votes are silenced, and we, especially as elected officials, should be alarmed if any American who wants to cast a ballot is unable to cast a ballot. What H.R. 4 does is it restores the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by giving a new coverage formula. In fact, the Roberts Court specifically said in striking down section 4(b) that it was outdated. So H.R. 4 is our effort, the efforts of three committees, hours of testimony, lots and lots of stakeholders, and lots and lots of people who were American citizens not able to vote; it is that effort that led to a narrowly tailored new coverage formula. That new coverage formula does not look back to the 1960s or to the 1970s. It looks back 25 years, that is 1994 and going forward. It requires adjudicated violations of voter discrimination. It is narrowly tailored, and it hits the mark as to what the Supreme Court requires us to do in saying that Congress could feel free to update its coverage formula. The Supreme Court and Roberts, in his opinion, also said that voter discrimination still existed. It admitted that it still existed. And H.R.…”