The Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I oppose the amendment.

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this amendment because it is a mere distraction. It is an attempt to politicize the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by interjecting campaign finance and settlement terms into civil rights legislation.

If Republicans were really serious about voting rights--about voting rights--they would actually be willing to come to the table and talk about how we can fully restore section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Leave it up to our colleagues across the aisle to interject money and finance into civil rights law. What has been lost today in this debate is the very heart of this bill; it is the central meaning of the bill.

Let's not forget the brave patriots of the civil rights and voting rights movement who marched, prayed, and died for the right to vote. These foot soldiers for equality, like our very own John Lewis, were ordinary citizens who dared to achieve extraordinary social change by forcing this Nation to live up to its ideals of equality and justice for all.

We know, Mr. Speaker, that the price of freedom is not free. It has been bought and paid for by those brave foot soldiers so that, one day, a little Black girl from Selma, Alabama, could sit in this august body.

I know I am not the only Black and Brown colleague of ours who owes our very presence in this Chamber to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Mr. Speaker, old battles have become new again. We fight for the same equity that these foot soldiers fought for in Selma.

Progress is elusive. Every generation must fight to maintain the progress that we have had and to seek to advance it.

Since the Supreme Court's decision in 2013 in Shelby v. Holder, States across this country have enacted harsh measures that make it more difficult to vote.

Mr. Speaker, I dare say that Selma is now. Since the Shelby decision, 25 States have put in place new voting restrictions.

Selma is still now, because, since the Shelby decision, 12 States have laws making it harder for citizens to register and stay registered.

Selma is now. Since the Shelby decision, 10 more States have made early and absentee voting more difficult.

While today there are no poll taxes or literacy tests, these modern- day barriers to voting are no less discriminatory or suppressive than those old practices.

Voting rights should be a nonpartisan issue, and the fact that, in this amendment, they would try to politicize voting rights, we should all--all--be appalled by that.

Voting rights have been, always, very nonpartisan, and it used to be that the Voting Rights Acts passed overwhelmingly with Republicans and Democrats. In fact, the VRA was reauthorized five times--yes--under Republican and Democratic Presidents. So what has changed?

I ask my colleagues across the aisle: What are you afraid of? Why are you afraid to let more Americans vote?

Is it because your own political interests are only realized when you limit access to the ballot box?

I say: Shame on you. Shame on you.

Could it be that what we need more than anything else is to look at our North Star; that is, John Lewis. Mr. Lewis, we are all honored, every day, to be able to call you ``colleague,'' and the reality is that what happened on that bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 is still occurring today.

If one person who is an American and who is a voter is not allowed to vote, it goes to the very heart of the integrity of all of our elections. We should all want to make sure that every American can vote.

So, let us make sure that we remember what Elijah Cummings would say. He would say: We are better than this.

We are better than this. Having an amendment that deals with politicizing the Voting Rights Act is appalling.

I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment and to remember the words of another civil rights activist, Amelia Boynton Robinson, who also was bludgeoned on that bridge with John Lewis in 1965, who came to this Chamber in 2015, as my special guest, for the State of the Union. Many of you on both sides of the aisle were willing to host her.

I say to you what she said. When people said: ``I stand on your shoulders,'' she said, ``Get off my shoulders. Do your own work.''

I say now: Miss Amelia, we are doing our own work because we are voting to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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