Wiley Nickel: “My colleagues heard it here. In my 2 years in Congress, I have voted 19 times for Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker of the…”

“My colleagues heard it here. In my 2 years in Congress, I have voted 19 times for Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker of the House. I had very much hoped to be able to once more vote for him for Speaker of the House. Unfortunately, partisan gerrymandering has robbed the voters of that choice, and I did not run for reelection. We have an incredibly important issue here before us in the U.S. House of Representatives. Going back to North Carolina and how we got to this point in our State, the North Carolina Supreme Court, in an incredibly rare procedural rule, decided to rehear a case that had already been decided. The only reason they decided to rehear the case was because the election changed the composition on the court. It was unprecedented and the rule is very rarely used. The dissenting opinion by Justice Michael Morgan charged the majority with improper motivations and willful blindness. Speaking to their motivation, the dissent wrote that ``the five justices which constitute the majority here have emboldened themselves to infuse partisan politics brazenly into the outcome of the present case. . . . '' Madam Speaker, that was an absolutely terrible ruling, giving Republican extremists in North Carolina's gerrymandered legislature the ability to draw any maps they chose and the North Carolina Supreme Court did nothing there. There is so much more work to do, but the North Carolina General Assembly Republicans carved up North Carolina's 13th District.…”