Scorched Earth to Mississippi Burning

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLYBURN. Madam Speaker, last March, as the tragic failure of the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic was becoming very apparent, the House Democratic Caucus held a conference call to discuss the crisis. Recalling the lessons of history, like the aftermath of World War I, the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, and World War II, that it is usually the least of these among us that are the hardest hit during the crises and the last to recover after these crises are over, if they are able to recover at all; I expressed at that time to the Caucus that the legislation before us offered a tremendous opportunity to restructure things in our vision. I was referring then, as I often do, to the vision expressed in our Pledge of Allegiance to our Nation's flag of liberty and justice for all.

Shortly after the media reported these comments, Senator McConnell, the majority leader of the Senate, derided them on the Senate floor. Referring to me by position, he declared: ``This is not a political opportunity. It is a national emergency.''

I wholeheartedly agree with the now-minority leader of the Senate that the coronavirus pandemic was and remains a national emergency. But because the previous administration and Senate Republicans failed to address it with appropriate urgency and a vision of liberty and justice for all, the American people, through the political process last November, entrusted Democrats with an opportunity to build back with a better and more equitable vision for the future of our great country.

The American Rescue Plan has begun that process, and it is enjoying widespread, bipartisan support across the entire spectrum of the country. It did not get a single Republican vote in the House or the Senate. Because of the use of the budget process commonly called reconciliation, Republicans were not able to block by filibuster the American Rescue Plan, and that is proving to be a good thing.

But the Senate minority leader and several of his colleagues seem to be hellbent on using archaic Senate procedural rules to allow the minority in the Senate to block any legislation designed to protect the voting and civil rights of our country's minority citizens as we continue our pursuit toward the fulfillment of liberty and justice for all.

We have been here before. During the 1940s and 1950s, the Senate filibuster was used to kill civil rights legislation and protect Jim Crow laws. Today, Senate Republican leaders are employing the same tactics to obstruct voting rights and civil rights legislation. Their efforts are designed to gain power for their party by suppressing political participation by minorities.

The minority leader has threatened that if Senate Democrats modify the filibuster rules to do to him as he did to President Obama, he will resort to scorched-earth tactics. This threat of scorched-earth tactics by the Senate minority leader in defiance of American democracy is reminiscent of ``Mississippi Burning,'' which highlighted the lynching of three civil rights workers who were simply registering Black voters in Mississippi in June 1964. They were murdered by the KKK, with the cooperation of law enforcement officials, to keep them from assisting minority citizens who simply wanted to vote. It was 44 days before their bodies were located and four decades before anyone faced legal consequences for their deaths.

Today, Republicans are using the big lie about the 2020 elections as a pretext to advance a litany of minority voter suppression laws. They know that our vision of liberty and justice for all enjoys majority support among voters, so they seek to suppress enough votes so that their oppressive policies and bankrupt ideas can prevail. The minority leader wants to allow a minority of his minority to block measures that would prevent a return to bygone days.

To confront this threat, the Senate must eliminate the 60-vote threshold to end a filibuster on voting rights and civil rights legislation. Just as Mississippi Burning was met with the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, the threat of scorched earth must be met with the For the People Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.

I didn't march in the streets and spend nights in jail as a young man to find myself fighting the same battles generations later, but it appears the minority leader and his Republican colleagues are preparing to retread old ground, and I am prepared to stand my ground.

To the minority leader and his colleagues, I say: This is not a political opportunity. This is a national emergency.

Since this country's inception, equal rights for people of color have been restricted by those in power who seek to hold on to power by using their power to deny the greatness of this country to those who do not look like them.

Extending debate on legislative issues is one thing, but when it comes to rights rooted in the Constitution, the filibuster has no place.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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