John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, how pleased our friend would be that Nikema Williams is presiding, his successor. He was one of her mentors.

Madam Speaker, how proud you must be to preside at this critical time in our history.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Selma, Alabama, Terri Sewell. I have been with Terri and her church, worshipped with her, prayed with John Lewis in her church, walked down the streets of her town and over a bridge called the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And unlike John Lewis, when we walked across it, there were Alabama troopers to protect us rather than prevent us from voting.

Madam Speaker, I have heard a lot of discussion on the floor today about how there is no problem in America; people have full access. Too many people that I talk to throughout the country have told me that is not the case.

The Supreme Court passed a ruling and said, Oh, everything was fine. And as soon as they did, as soon as they took this preclearance off, State after State after State enacted legislation to make it more difficult to vote; like that.

Justice Ginsburg made an analogy in Shelby that the Supreme Court was saying, Oh, well, there is no problem left. She said it was like the man with the umbrella who had the umbrella up; wasn't getting wet. It was raining, but he wasn't getting wet. So he gave the umbrella away and said, I'm okay. I am dry. And then immediately, of course, he got all wet.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to join my sister, Terri Sewell; John's sister. John called me brother, and he called all of us brothers and sisters, in this, the beloved community that he envisioned. That was King's vision, as John was his disciple.

Today, we are honoring the legacy of a historic Member of this House. In my view, I have served with two historic Members of the Congress of the United States and the Senate and the House. There were a lot of famous, but two historic figures: One was John Lewis. And the other is Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker and, in my view, the most effective Speaker with whom I have served in the 40 years that I have been here.

John Lewis was my dear friend, and he was your dear friend. I called him the most Christlike person I have ever seen, our dear Saint John, who preached to us the gospel of getting into ``good trouble'' and creating a beloved community; the gospel of John Robert Lewis.

He would be proud of us today for bringing this bill to the floor. He worked hard on this bill. I can remember sitting-- Jim Clyburn and I, and John Lewis and others--sitting in my whip's conference room, working on voting rights' legislation.

So let us honor his memory today with strong support for its voting rights' protection, for its reversal of the damage wrought by the 2013 Shelby v. Holder ruling, and for its recognition that our democracy is imperfect if it is not open to all eligible to vote.

In that ruling, Shelby v. Holder, the Supreme Court erred in its assessment of how necessary the Voting Rights Act's preclearance section was for protecting Americans' right to vote. You are not protecting Americans' right to vote if the relief that you can seek is after the fact, after the governor or the President or the Senator or the House of Delegates or representative, Member has been elected. It is too late. That is why preclearance was so critically important to reform and to protection of voters' rights.

In her powerful dissent, as I said, Justice Ginsburg pointed out that throwing out preclearance when it has worked and has continued to work to stop discriminatory changes is like that gentleman giving away his umbrella.

Indeed, since 2013, we have seen a veritable downpour of discriminatory and exclusionary voter suppression measures. I hear people arguing--I heard a Texan argue on this floor about how it is so easy to vote in Texas. Yet, we see them fighting for legislation, which half of their body--or not quite half, unfortunately--but a big number of their body who represents minority citizens says, No, you are wrong. You ought to walk in our shoes and find that they are making it more difficult for me to vote.

Since 2013, we have seen a veritable downpour, as I said. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, sponsored by Terri Sewell, would confront this tempest head on. We have seen a campaign of voter suppression efforts in Republican-led jurisdictions that have changed their laws and voting rules to make it harder for eligible Americans to vote.

Their leader, Donald Trump, says there was fraud, there was theft. The problem is the Republican judges to which they appealed said no. The problem is Attorney General Barr, who covered up almost everything that Donald Trump said, even he couldn't say that there was fraud.

And so they justify these laws by somehow there is fraud out there, they are stealing our elections. That is baloney. It is the same kind of lie that Donald Trump continues to parrot. And if you say, like Liz Cheney did, he is lying, you are kicked out of your party.

We have seen a campaign of voter suppression over and over and over again, making it harder for eligible Americans to vote, disproportionately targeting African Americans. I am not an African American. It is hard for me to walk in those shoes.

I try to empathize, but I know if I am not Black, I can't really be as knowledgeable as I would be if I were Black, and I was every day subjected to discrimination, or if I were another person of color.

They have reduced early voting opportunities that help working people cast ballots. They want to eliminate--they haven't in every place--mail balloting, because they feel somehow if I don't see them when they fill out that form and attest that they are who they are under penalties of perjury that somehow----

Now, I can understand, from a party that in the last seven elections, in the last quarter of a century, have elected a number of Presidents, only one got a majority; only one, but they won the electoral college vote. That is why some Republicans said: Are you crazy? You confirm the electoral college, because it is what is protecting us against the majority.

They purged voter rolls so that people who believed themselves to be registered because they had registered and voted in the past, showed up to vote but were turned away.

I sponsored the Help America Vote Act with a guy named Bob Ney, who was from Ohio and a Republican, and a dear friend of mine. Unfortunately, he got in trouble, but he is a good man, still a good man. And we provided for provisional ballots, which simply said, if you made a mistake and came to the wrong precinct, fill out the ballot, we are going to check it tomorrow or the next day and make sure you are eligible to vote, and if you are, we will count it. That made sense; efforts to eliminate those.

These are real and pressing challenges facing our elections and our democracy; not imaginary fraud, but active and visible voter suppression. We have a duty, my colleagues, Democrat and Republican colleagues, we have a duty, a responsibility, a moral responsibility to make sure that people can vote and that we facilitate their vote, not impede it. Not make it more difficult. Facilitate it. Encourage them. Lift them up and let them vote.

And we owe it to John Lewis and the other heroes of Selma, and all the other small towns and byways and big cities and big States, where people fought, demonstrated, were bruised, battered, beaten, and yes, some died, so that their brothers and sisters could have the vote.

My colleagues, it falls to us now, today, to continue their march forward, and to carry on their work. There are no Alabama troopers waiting on the other side that are going to beat us or batter us or prevent us. We are not at risk. Whatever way we vote, we are going to walk out of there today and we are going to be fine.

But we have a moral responsibility to those who fought here and around the world to protect the vote, to protect democracy.

I urge my colleagues, Madam Speaker, to join you, to join me, to join our fellow colleagues in voting for H.R. 4, and for the protection of voting rights in our country. H.R. 4 the people. Parliamentary Inquiry

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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, is it appropriate on the floor of the House to tell the truth?

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