Providing for Consideration of H.R. Voting Rights Advancement Act of and Providing for Consideration of H. Res. Expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives Regarding United States Efforts to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Through A Negotiated Two- State Solution

Floor Speech

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, today I proudly rise to support the rule on H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019.

Voting rights are primal. They are the cornerstone of our democracy. No right is more precious to our citizenship than the right of all Americans to be able to vote. When Americans are not able to cast their ballots, their votes are silenced, and we, especially as elected officials, should be alarmed if any American who wants to cast a ballot is unable to cast a ballot.

What H.R. 4 does is it restores the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by giving a new coverage formula. In fact, the Roberts Court specifically said in striking down section 4(b) that it was outdated. So H.R. 4 is our effort, the efforts of three committees, hours of testimony, lots and lots of stakeholders, and lots and lots of people who were American citizens not able to vote; it is that effort that led to a narrowly tailored new coverage formula. That new coverage formula does not look back to the 1960s or to the 1970s. It looks back 25 years, that is 1994 and going forward.

It requires adjudicated violations of voter discrimination. It is narrowly tailored, and it hits the mark as to what the Supreme Court requires us to do in saying that Congress could feel free to update its coverage formula.

The Supreme Court and Roberts, in his opinion, also said that voter discrimination still existed. It admitted that it still existed. And H.R. 4 is our effort to actually provide a modern-day voter coverage formula that will allow States and jurisdictions with the most egregious forms of discrimination to be required to preclear.

The Shelby v. Holder decision originated out of Shelby County, Alabama. I am honored every day to represent Alabama's Seventh Congressional District. It is a district that knows all too well the importance of voting.

You see, my district includes not only Birmingham and Montgomery but my hometown of Selma, Alabama. It was on a bridge in my hometown that our colleague John Lewis and so many other foot soldiers bled on that bridge for the equal right of all Americans to be able to vote.

This is exactly what H.R. 4 does. It restores the full protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In so doing, it provides a mechanism by which the most egregious States and localities must preclear before the elections. It is so hard to unring the bell once an election has already taken place. So section 2, while it has been used to litigate and to get good results, it only can occur after the election has taken place.

So I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is not only an important piece of legislation for our Nation to ensure that every American-- American--who has the ability, who is 18 years of age or older, has the right to access a ballot box.

It is clear to me that since the Shelby v. Holder decision, so many States have now instituted voter discrimination laws. Some of them have been in the guise of voter fraud, but the Brennan Center and so many others have found that voter fraud happens minisculely in any election.

It is not about voter fraud. It is about voter suppression, suppressing the voices of certain Americans. And that is un-American, Mr. Speaker.

Just the 2018 midterm elections alone highlight the voter discrimination that occurred.

In Georgia, the Republican candidate for Governor used his power as secretary of state to put 53,000 voter registrations on hold, nearly 70 percent of which belonged to African American voters.

In North Dakota, Republicans established a new requirement that voters must show an ID that they live at a residential street address. It was not enough that they had a P.O. Box. That law was a barrier to thousands of Native Americans who live on reservations and use P.O. Boxes rather than residential street addresses.

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Maryland has shown, in Maricopa County, Arizona, which I think is where the gentlewoman is from, there is still voter discrimination.

Mr. Speaker, this is a seminal piece of legislation that will restore rights for the people. All of us, Republicans and Democrats, should be about making sure it is easier to vote, not harder to vote.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for the rule and the underlying legislation, H.R. 4.

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