Burgess Owens: “I want to talk primarily today about the Supreme Court decision with respect to voting rights in New York City. They…”

“I want to talk primarily today about the Supreme Court decision with respect to voting rights in New York City. They have of course come down with a decision in New York that obeys the Supreme Court decision and the precedent it set. So the courts have ordered that one district, the district of my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York [Ms. Velazquez], the 12th Congressional District of New York, be redrawn; and the courts have said this must take place by July 30. The legislature has until July 30 to redraw the district. I think that this process has been going on for some time now. We understood that the Supreme Court, when it made its decision on the Georgia case and the North Carolina cases and the Texas case, all those cases let us know that it was almost inevitable that eventually some district in New York that was being challenged would be struck down and the district that has the oddest shape of course was the 12th Congressional District, presently held by Congresswoman Velazquez. We knew it was coming but nevertheless my neighbors seemed very alarmed.”