Steve Cohen

Our democracy cannot continue half-slave and half-free.

This legislation in Texas would strip the ability of Harris County to do that.

We can't win if everybody votes.

We can't just fold up our hands and give it to the State legislators because, if we did that, we know we would be back in Jim Crow times.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court effectively gutted the VRA's preclearance requirement in 2013...

This is why Congress had repeatedly reauthorized the pre-clearance provision on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis.

It rightly prevented potentially discriminatory voting practices from taking effect before they could harm minority voters.

This mechanism ensures that the new voting rules and practices in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination were fair to all voters.

History repeats itself often, and, unfortunately, in the Deep South, from where I hailed, that has gone on pre-Civil War, post-Civil War...

The Voting Rights Act with an effective preclearance provision went a long way towards righting that wrong.

Memphis, unfortunately, is third in the country in pedestrian deaths, and that needs to stop.

It is important that we have not only the prosecutorial perspective that the judges experience, but also the defense perspective.

I represented people, poor people, who otherwise had no voice.

Zero Black appeals court judges were appointed by Trump, zero out of about 65.

Over the past 4 years which direction have we gone in? We have gone the wrong direction.

I believe it is about half of the Members on the other side who have not taken their tests, and that is why we can't go back to our hearings like we would like.

I do my job as judge, but I also feel I have a responsibility to my communities to make certain that people's dreams are enlarged.

That is just a pittance, and it is pathetic that our values are more towards protecting and taking care of our weapons than we are with taking care of the people who were adversely impacted by the testing of those weapons.

We should put them on a program like the EEOICPA program that was referenced before and give Downwinders and uranium miners healthcare coverage just equal.

It is a national shame, and I hope you will forgive me for not finding space to schedule this hearing.

I would like to thank our colleagues, one of our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, Representative Greg Stanton, and our former House colleague, now Senator Ben Ray Lujan, for their leadership on this important issue.

When we came to Congress, my class of 2006 was offered the opportunity to go to Harvard University for a seminar. We were told there that one of the greatest problems facing this country was the lack of workers, that our birthrate was…

Unlike Alexander Haig, I am only here temporarily. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney), who is from the East Side and who, as chairperson, brought us the great hearing last year on…

Thank you, Ms. Lee. I would ask unanimous consent to submit 60 letters and documents from civil rights groups and NGOs that were submitted today.

We call upon our leaders to condemn racism in all its forms, invest in the AAPI communities, and support individuals who've experienced race-based violence.