John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, our colleague Rahm Emanuel famously said: ``You never let a serious crisis go to waste.'' Today, my Democratic colleagues are not letting a serious crisis go to waste.

While America is focused on the tragedy halfway around the world in Afghanistan, a plan to fail that now has successfully failed, the reality is, here, instead of holding real hearings, looking at the causes, and maybe, in fact, being more helpful in preventing further suffering of the 37 million people in Afghanistan, what are we doing? We are codifying a permanent majority of the Democratic Party everywhere they can. We are making changes to election law that pull into Washington and into the Attorney General's office control of elections that the Constitution clearly gave to legislatures.

What we are doing, by the statements of my own colleagues on the other side of the aisle, is we are clearly saying we don't like the Supreme Court's decisions, so we are going to find a way to do what we want to do even though, in fact, the time and the success of the Civil Rights Act has, in fact, mostly passed.

Why can't you take success? Because it no longer benefits the goals of a permanent Democratic majority. I am sorry for my Democratic colleagues that, in fact, the people of America do not at times approve of things like the tragedy in Afghanistan or, in fact, are not willing to accept a permanent smear of we can never have elections without Federal intervention.

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