John Mica: “I thank Chairman Ehlers for yielding me this time, and I thank him for bringing out a bill that is both a reasonable…”

“I thank Chairman Ehlers for yielding me this time, and I thank him for bringing out a bill that is both a reasonable bill, a bill that looks out for the interests of the poor and those that could be deprived of the right to vote. I have the greatest respect for the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis). He is a hero among heroes, and I am here to tell you if this bill in any way infringed on anyone's ability to vote or discriminated on any basis of allowing them to have access to the polls, I would not support it. But what we have in this legislation which has been so ably crafted is legislation by a bipartisan commission, 21 members led by two very distinguished individuals, the gentleman from Georgia, the former President Carter, and the gentleman from Texas, former Secretary of State Jim Baker, a 21-member commission, and by a vote of 18-21, only three dissenters, they asked for and recommend this for protection of the ballot. Now we have been discussing here, day after day, border security. And we want our borders safe. This issue is what Americans want. They want safe borders and they want safe ballots. I come from the State of Florida where we had the question of who voted. This gives us protection because it asks for minimal identification.”