Adam Schiff: “last week, the Republican leadership decided to pull the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization legislation from the floor.…”

“last week, the Republican leadership decided to pull the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization legislation from the floor. Debate on this historic civil rights statute had been scheduled for last Wednesday afternoon, and just hours before it was to start, the bill was withdrawn from consideration. As a cosponsor of this important bill, I am deeply troubled by the majority leadership's willingness to allow extreme members of their party to hijack reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, a law that has protected minority voters from intimidation and discrimination for 40 years. It was an act unbefitting a party that calls itself the ``Party of Lincoln.'' The original Voting Rights Act reinforced the Constitution's 15th amendment guarantee that race cannot be a bar to any citizen's right to vote. Although the 15th amendment was ratified in 1870, it took nearly 100 years for Congress to give it teeth with the Voting Rights Act. Until then, the rights of millions of Americans to vote was nullified by poll taxes, literacy tests, voter intimidation, and outright violence. Only in 1965, with the passage of the Voting Rights Act, were African Americans finally able to exercise the right to vote. But the path to this legislation was by no means easy. On March 7, 1965, what has become known as Bloody Sunday, 600 civil rights marchers peacefully protested for the right to vote.…”