Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge passage of this legislation carrying the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to the Senate for immediate consideration to safeguard our most fundamental constitutional right, the right to vote. We took an oath to protect this country from all threats, foreign and domestic. Today, we face a domestic threat from those seeking to gain and hold power by suppressing votes and nullifying election results. Congress must combat this threat by ensuring equal and unencumbered access to the ballot box and ensuring an accurate vote count. It is time to choose. Will we uphold our oath and protect this fragile democracy, or will we subvert the Constitution and fetter the franchise? I want to remind the previous speaker that we did not have Jim Crow before there was Jim Crow, and we had it until 1954. I used to teach this stuff called history, and I will say to my colleagues: Anything that has happened before can happen again. It was the lack of the vote that had 95 years between George Washington Murray, who was the last African American to represent South Carolina here in this body, until I came along in 1992--95 years. Why? Because the right to vote was taken away and election results were nullified. We are not going back.”