Political Quotes

“As oral arguments are being prepared for the February 27 U.S. Supreme Court hearing in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, which challenges the constitutionality of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, I stand here today in strong support of upholding section 5 as evidence of its current critical necessity. In my home State of Texas, the need for section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is playing out in a very dramatic fashion. I'm a plaintiff in the ongoing litigation involving the 2011 Texas redistricting case, Quesada v. The State of Texas. I can personally attest and flatly state that overt and deliberate racial discrimination is still used by leaders in Texas today. I wish that statement were untrue or out of date. It would be wonderful to say that we have progressed past the need for protection under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Sadly, this is not the case. Section 5 protects minorities from racial discriminatory voter ID laws, voter suppression tactics, and discriminatory redistricting plans. These protections are needed now as much as ever. In 2011, just 2 years ago, a map was drawn by the Texas Legislature that didn't merely affect the politics of our State. Overt racial discriminatory tactics were used to isolate and suppress hundreds of thousands of minorities for the purpose of political gain by current partisan leaders of my State.…”