Fighting for the Right to Vote
Floor Speech
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Ms. ADAMS. Madam Speaker, I thank the coanchor, Sheila Jackson Lee. I thank her for her stellar leadership and all of her diligent work and labor in this vineyard.
To the dynamic coanchor, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres), I thank him so very much.
To our illustrious chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, I am so very proud of her work and very proud of her leadership, and I thank her so much.
Power is what makes the difference in lives and communities. The first thing you have to understand about power and how to get it: You don't ask somebody how to get it, where it is, if you can have it. You take it.
Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about our most fundamental right in a democracy, the power of the vote, the right to vote.
While we have made amazing strides over the past century--votes for women, voting rights for Native Americans and indigenous people, the end of racist Jim Crow laws that completely suppressed the Black votes in certain States, and lowering the voting age to 18--we are still marching because the promise of one person, one vote continues to be abridged by State legislatures across the country.
Marches, sit-ins, and protests are part of our rights as Americans, but we shouldn't have to March 245 years after the Declaration of Independence. We shouldn't have to march 151 years after the 15th Amendment guaranteed Black Americans the right to vote. We shouldn't have to march a full century after women's suffrage.
But we will continue to march, and we will continue to make our voices heard until every adult citizen can freely, fairly, and easily access the ballot. To cast a vote is at the core of what it means to be American. It is how we build a more perfect Union.
Here in the House, we have passed voting rights bills that bring us closer to a more perfect Union. As we await the support of our Senate colleagues on this urgent matter, the issue of voting rights, I want to leave you with this because I have to tell you that, in my State of North Carolina, there is a lot of mischief going on, and there has been for a number of years.
As the gentlewoman knows, my district was considered to be the district that they described as ``surgical precision.'' It continues to be a problem.
I have been a State legislator for 20 years. I have witnessed legislation that targets African Americans with almost surgical precision and imposes cures for problems that did not exist--that is, unless you think African Americans voting is a problem.
Congress cannot tolerate State-level attempts to curb our most fundamental right. Now is the time to make sure that every American who can vote has the opportunity to do so. This is our power, our message.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her pointed message about North Carolina and her district. I think I join her. My district is a voting rights district, so we know what it is to be at the edge of surviving.
The only way that we have survived is with the protection of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. We are living testimony that it is crucial to the vast diversity that has been created in this House on behalf of the American people.
Madam Speaker, let me now take the pleasure of yielding to another distinguished Member who has had her own history in a very unique State.
Someone asked the question: Is it Southern? Is it Northern? I think you only have to hear her--and, of course, the President of the United States, who is a very forthright leader. President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris have been forthright in confronting issues that have been meant to help the American people heal and unite. She has been right in the mix and, as well, has been a leader on labor issues, a leader on healthcare issues. But one thing she knows is the depth of disparity that plagues a community when voting is extinguished.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Delaware (Ms. Blunt Rochester).
Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee for her leadership and the things that she does to protect all of us across the country, not just in her district but across the country. We are greatly indebted to her for her service.
The gentlewoman mentioned me coming from the State of Delaware and whether it is Southern or Northern. Many people might not know, but we are on the Mason-Dixon Line. We are urban, suburban, rural, and coastal. But we are also on that Mason-Dixon Line with that strong history.
Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and her coanchor, Mr. Torres, and I thank our esteemed chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Joyce Beatty.
Madam Speaker, I stand before you tonight with a sense of urgency because the most fundamental and sacred right we have as Americans is under attack.
Across this country, State lawmakers have introduced at least 389 restrictive bills in 48 States just this year, and 14 States have already enacted more restrictive voting laws. Even the highest court in the land is chipping away at this fundamental right.
We know that those who would engage in suppression, subversion, and intimidation are not resting, but neither is the Congressional Black Caucus. Tonight, we are standing up and speaking out because we know that just as our message is our power so, too, is our vote.
I am going to say that again: Our vote is our power.
We are here to protect and defend that right because the vote is tied to everything. The vote is tied to criminal justice reform. The vote is tied to healthcare. The vote is tied to the minimum wage increase across this country and access to affordable childcare. It is tied to the preservation of our democracy. It is tied to our very existence: the ability to drink clean water, breathe air that is free of pollution, and even to have a planet to live on.
Everything is tied to the vote, and the vote is on the line.
While we are fighting a new battle, it is the same old tactics that we have seen before. And it is a future we are not going back to.
Yesterday, we lost another American civil rights leader and educator, Bob Moses. One of the many things that he was known for was Freedom Summer, a project to organize and register voters. Through intimidation and beating, Bob Moses never relented in his mission to register voters in the South.
Sixty years later, it is our turn to answer the question that Bob asked of students, a question that goes to the very core of who we are: What kind of society will we be?
Today, the CBC is here to proclaim loudly and proudly: We will be the kind of society that values every voice, empowers every citizen, and counts every vote because it is all on the line. We must pass and have signed into law H.R. 1, the For the People Act, and H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
In honor of Bob Moses, let's make this the Freedom Summer of our time.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for mentioning Bob Moses.
For those of us who care and know about history, we know about Bob Moses, and it makes this night even more significant because if you are losing the peaceful warriors who helped organize and put themselves on the line, then we must carry on. I thank the gentlewoman from Delaware.
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