Burgess Owens: “the Voting Rights Act is just one great step forward toward the movement of our Nation toward a more perfect Union. This…”

“the Voting Rights Act is just one great step forward toward the movement of our Nation toward a more perfect Union. This is a creation of Lyndon Johnson, a politician, a President of unparalleled practical genius, who fashioned this to bring to the table those people who had serious grievances. We gave the world constitutional democracy. It is a great leap forward for civilization. We can continue to lead civilization by improving on this model. Half the democracies of the world, by the way, right now, do have provisions in their constitutions for representation of minorities. We have spent $9 billion, at least $9 billion, some of you can correct me if it is more, $9 billion in Kosovo, and Kosovo is still struggling under a mandate to provide a constitution which guarantees representation to the minority Serbs. Albanians are the majority there now, and the Serbs need to be represented. In Iran, they have a provision which allows for the representation of Armenians and Jews. In Burundi, the Tutsi minority is guaranteed 40 percent of the seats in parliament. Across the world, these provisions are made because they are practical provisions. They bring people to the table and involve them in the process. The only way we are going to solve the problem in Iraq is to make certain we have something similar to a Voting Rights Act to guarantee representation for all the minorities in Iraq.”