Terri Sewell: “I thank Representative Veasey for his tireless effort not only as a plaintiff in the Texas case courageously fighting…”

“I thank Representative Veasey for his tireless effort not only as a plaintiff in the Texas case courageously fighting against the injustices against voters, but I want to also thank the gentleman for his leadership on the Congressional Voting Rights Caucus and for his participation in tonight's Special Order hour. We are all with the gentleman in his efforts to make sure that all Americans have the right to vote. Mr. Speaker, I have said that I introduced a bill called the Voting Rights Advancement Act. I would like to talk a little bit about the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015 in an effort to really encourage the rest of my colleagues here in this august body to join with me in passing the Voting Rights Advancement Act. What the Voting Rights Advancement Act does is it provides a modern- day formula, exactly what the Supreme Court asked of Congress. By striking down the old formula in the Shelby decision, the Supreme Court issued a challenge to Congress to come up with a modern-day formula. That is exactly what we do in this bill. This bill doesn't look back to 1940, 1950 or 1960. Oh, no. This bill looks at 1990 going forward. It is a 25-year lookback. If a State has had five or more statewide violations, then it will be a covered State. So it is a modern-day formula looking at any incidents of discriminatory practices since 1990 going forward. Mr.…”