Political Quotes

“I can't think of a more important thing to be debating here in these Chambers than the right to vote. We can't even get to that. We can't even get to that because of the use of the filibuster to prevent us from having a vote, a discussion, on the Voting Rights Act. In America, the path toward justice has always, always been intertwined with the right to vote. Progress and enfranchisement have always been braided together. Billy clubs, whips, barbed wire, wrapped tubing--that is what awaited John Lewis at the end of that Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma because it has never been easy--it has never been easy--to fight for enfranchisement or to fight for the right to vote. There has always been a price to pay by those who focus on justice. Shouted slurs, explosions of tear gas, pained screams, and the crack of clubs against bone--those were the sounds that filled the air as Lewis and hundreds of his fellow Americans tried to march forward as they tried to bring their country forward one step at a time. Most of us in this room know of those mothers and fathers of the civil rights movement, what they did for us that day. They raised their voice on that bridge so that fellow Americans could raise their voices at the ballot box. Tragically, we also know that many in this Chamber today appear unwilling to do their part to protect the rights those heroes fought for.…”