Maxwell Frost: “the Republican Majority is again bringing to the floor of this House legislation designed to discourage voter…”

“the Republican Majority is again bringing to the floor of this House legislation designed to discourage voter registration and participation and our electoral process. H.R. 3582 is but another attack on the rights of thousands of citizens to vote, aimed primarily at our nation's Hispanic citizens. Earlier in this Congress, Republicans targeted Hispanic voters in the 46th Congressional District of California during their outrageous investigation of Loretta Sanchez's victory in 1996. What happened there was simply an effort to deny a Hispanic candidate a legitimately won seat in Congress, while attempting to intimidate lawful citizens and discourage them from voting. But that's not all. The Republicans are also attempting to limit the impact of Hispanics in the political process by setting up a Census procedure that will severely undercount Hispanic and other minority populations. They are promoting a method that by all accounts will prevent an accurate Census count, with Hispanics in particular being harmed by their proposal. Now this troubling trend is continuing with this unwarranted provision of H.R. 3582, a provision which could allow state and local officials to drop thousands of American citizens from the voter rolls, solely on the basis of race or an 'ethnic-sounding' name. I find it incredible and intolerable that the Republicans would so blatantly go after Hispanic Americans and attempt to deny them their rights at the voting booth.”