On the recordNovember 16, 2011
I thank the gentleman for yielding, and thank you for the opportunity for calling us together on this very important topic. I just want to close out my time very briefly by saying to the gentlemen from Texas and New Jersey that we are not going to lay down and just allow these laws to stand, that there are civil rights organizations, as we speak, pursuing these laws because we know that they are violations of people's, of individuals' constitutional rights. We know they are violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We know that the Justice Department is reviewing many of these laws because they have to be precleared under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. So people should know that while we are here expressing grave concern, we are certainly not only using our voices to fight these insidious laws; we are standing up for the franchise, standing up for the right to vote and making sure that, as Democrats, we go to bat to make sure every eligible voter has an opportunity to cast their vote for the person that is the individual that they want to represent them in this representative democracy. We are standing against individuals who try to fix the outcome of elections by blocking people's access to the polls.
