Political Quotes

“today is the 51st anniversary of Bloody Sunday--a horrible abuse of American citizens that occurred in Selma, AL. Each year we commemorate the events of that fateful day, because it helped transform our Nation and proved to be a catalyst for the passage of the Voting Rights Act. For the last two years, this commemoration has been a sad reminder of what five justices did to that cornerstone civil rights law. In Shelby County v. Holder a narrow majority of the Court drove a stake through the heart of the Voting Rights Act when it struck down the coverage formula for its preclearance provision in Section 5. I mentioned that because under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Federal Government has the authority to examine and prevent racially discriminatory voting changes from going into effect before those changes disenfranchise voters in covered jurisdictions. By striking down the coverage formula that determined which States and jurisdictions were subject to Federal review, the Court rendered Section 5 unenforceable. Unfortunately, even though almost every single Republican and Democrat in the House and Senate voted for the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court, by a 1-vote margin--notwithstanding that 535 of us had voted--drove a stake through the heart of the Voting Rights Act by striking down the coverage formula for its preclearance provisions in Section 5.…”