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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Mr. DOGGETT. Voting rights guarantee all of our other rights. When Americans are obstructed from freely participating in elections, our democracy is imperiled.

This bill, six long years overdue, restores a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that was wrongfully nullified by Republican-appointed justices.

How troubling that a law that President Lyndon Johnson long ago secured now is being obstructed, while our home State of Texas has become ground zero for voter suppression. State Republicans have aggressively, illegally purged voting rolls. They eliminated mobile voting to quash especially student and senior voters. They enacted a cumbersome voter ID law. And they horribly, illegally gerrymandered our State.

Republicans split 100 voting precincts to create the district which I serve today, creating one of the most crooked districts that weaken the accessibility and accountability of Congress Members. A three-judge Federal court with two Republican-appointed judges unanimously condemned Texas redistricting as intentional racially discriminatory intent in its work.

Fortunately, the Texas Civil Rights Project, MoveTexas, LULAC, and other groups have challenged the suppression, but this bill is essential to offer the protection that they, and our democracy, deserve.

We need preclearance in Texas. We need preclearance to clear away all the obstacles Republicans insist on imposing to ensure that our State remains a voter nonparticipation State for democracy.

Madam Speaker, let's support H.R. 4.

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