The State of Voting Rights in America
Floor Speech
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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to coanchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour along with my distinguished colleague, Representative Terri Sewell, of the great State of Alabama.
For the next 60 minutes, members of the Congressional Black Caucus will have an opportunity to speak directly to the American people on the subject of the Shelby v. Holder decision and the American Voting Rights Act, specifically the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, an issue of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, the constituents we represent, and all Americans.
Sewell).
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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from the great State of Alabama (Ms. Sewell), and I wish to be totally associated with all of her great remarks and scholarship.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today because 11 years ago the Supreme Court of the United States proved that it lacked the judicial imagination befitting an institution clothed with immense power as 11 years ago the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Frighteningly, 11 years ago, the highest Court in the land decided that racism had magically evaporated in America and that hatred had somehow receded quietly into the history of the Republic never to be seen or heard from again.
Eleven years ago, nine Justices on the Supreme Court decided that they were social scientists with a particular expertise in racism and the politics of voting. Instead of being Justices who were hired by the American people to decide the constitutionality of a law, they rather took the position that the Court knew more about voter suppression than the people who have dedicated their entire lives to the subject.
Nine Justices on the Supreme Court, Mr. Speaker, thought they had a better working knowledge on the state of racism in America than people living with it every day. However, I rise tonight to declare emphatically that nothing could be further from the truth.
This Supreme Court does not know more about racism in America than do the people who are the survivors of it. The members of the Supreme Court are not experts on everything. They are not omniscient. They are not infallible. They are not beyond all moral and political reproach.
In fact, based upon what we have recently heard about certain members of the Supreme Court, it would seem that the complete opposite, in fact, is true. When it comes to the Supreme Court as it is currently configured, fallibility abounds.
I rise tonight, Mr. Speaker, because the elected Representatives of the American people cannot allow six unelected and seemingly uninformed individuals to undo the moral and democratic gains won by the civil rights movement over 50 years without doing something about it.
All over this country, we have seen the disparate impact that the Shelby County decision has had on voting access in America, and what was once thought to be a regional problem has now metastasized and become nationalized.
Since the Shelby decision, every region of this country is struggling to overcome novel attempts at voter suppression and the like. Regrettably, 11 years ago, those of us in the civil rights community told the leaders of this Nation what was going to happen.
We told America that gutting the Voting Rights Act would cause voter suppression to spread like a virus in a second-grade classroom, and that is exactly what has happened. That is exactly where we find ourselves today.
Those of us who believe that the only threat to democracy are events like unto those on January 6 are painfully naive. The greatest threat to democracy isn't the outright violence that takes place when citizens who are motivated by lies engage in hand-to-hand combat with one other, but rather by the legalized and the systemic unraveling of the cherished democratic norms. However, those of us who love America cannot sit idly by and allow the darkness of bigotry to, once again, embed itself into the electoral systems of this country as it once was.
Those of us who have a constitutional mandate to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty cannot allow what African Americans did to expand the general welfare of this country's commitment to opportunity be erased.
Nothing is more indelible and inherently fundamental for the success of a thriving democracy than is the quality of a citizen's right to vote, because in America, voting is the manifestation of citizenship. In this country, if you cannot vote, then you are not a citizen.
Moreover, what most people miss about the civil rights movement is that at its core it was an attempt to empower African Americans with the rights afforded to us by virtue of our citizenship.
The right to vote is our birthright, and, yet, for hundreds of years, this country denied African Americans born in this Nation what was legitimately due to them. Moreover, it is only through blood, sweat, and tears that African Americans were able to fight in every war to, once again, regain full citizenship.
It was only because people were willing to give their lives that Black people in this Nation can cast a ballot for the candidate of their choice, and we are not going to let anyone take those rights away.
Reflecting upon Shelby v. Holder 11 years later, I would like to quote the Assistant State's Attorney General Kristen Clarke.
She said: ``This anniversary provides an important opportunity to reflect on the profound consequences of that opinion'' in Shelby County v. Holder ``which struck down the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and left millions of voters of color without the mechanism that had stopped voting discrimination before it could be implemented.
``When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, he described it as `one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom.' The Voting Rights Act was the product of bold action by Congress. It forcefully addressed the problem that nearly a century after the Reconstruction Amendments, millions of Americans were still denied the ability'' to cast their ``vote and participate in our democracy because of their race.
``One of the most important pieces of the Voting Rights Act'' that was taken away ``was section 5's `preclearance' requirement. Enacted in 1965 and reauthorized by Congress in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006, section 5 required jurisdictions that had a history of voting discrimination to obtain approval from the Attorney General or a Federal Court before implementing changes in election procedures and practices.
``Covered jurisdictions could not implement their proposed voting changes until they had received preclearance. Thanks to section 5, jurisdictions that tried to make changes that had a discriminatory impact or were adopted with a discriminatory purpose were blocked from doing so. More than 800 proposed changes were altered or withdrawn in the period after 1982 alone.
``A repository of the department's section 5 `objection letters,' which provided an official record of each objection as well as the basis of the decision, can be found.
``The Shelby County ruling marked a significant turning point for voting rights in the United States. In its decision, the Supreme Court invalidated, on constitutional grounds, section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which provided the formula for determining which jurisdictions were covered under section 5.
``Without that formula, all jurisdictions were released from coverage overnight. Section 5 was rendered effectively inoperative, freeing States and localities to enact voting laws without Federal oversight.
``States wasted no time implementing election changes that had not or might not have survived the preclearance requirement. On June 25, 2013, the very day that the Supreme Court issued the Shelby opinion, Texas officials announced that they would implement a discriminatory and burdensome photo identification statute. And on June 26, the day after the Shelby County decision, Senator Tom Apodaca, chairman of the North Carolina Senate Rules Committee, publicly stated that the North Carolina legislature would be moving forward with an omnibus law imposing multiple voting restrictions.''
Why weren't they trying to expand voting?
They said: We will use this decision to restrict voting.
``In the absence of preclearance, the statutes went into effect and the department, along with private parties, had to file suit under a different part of the Voting Rights Act to enjoin them.''
Mr. Speaker, I continue:
``States have adopted photo identification requirements, limited those who can provide assistance at polling places, reduced options for early voting, and closed polling places. Unfortunately, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg proved prophetic when she observed in her Shelby dissent that ending preclearance was like `throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.'
``Without section 5, new laws can be challenged only through long, protracted, resource-intensive, case-by-case legislation,'' and fights.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is the most fundamental piece of legislation pending before the United States Congress, and it must be enacted with all deliberate speed. This is something, Mr. Speaker, we must do.
Securing the right to vote is the moral obligation we have to the principles of America and to whatever we believe is a future worthy of our children.
Let me remind my colleagues that the progenitors of suppression do not stop with their initial targets. Today, the votes of African Americans are being suppressed all over the Nation, but tomorrow it might well be yours.
Do not forget the lessons of history. The people who are coming for our rights will never be satisfied with what they have attempted to do to us. Soon they will look for new targets; that is to say, new objects of their resentment, their ridicule, and their scorn.
However, what the Supreme Court Shelby decision has reinforced, in no uncertain terms, is the fact that elections have consequences. The inability to elect a Democratic President in 2016 led to this horrible decision, and those of us who stand on the precipice of a national election must remember this invaluable lesson.
Let us not forget that in 2016 the woman with the most votes did not win the presidency.
Whatever policy differences we may have with the President of the United States, we cannot allow the protection of our civil rights to be left in the hands of Justices who are so ideologically motivated that they unapologetically fly insurrectionist flags upside down at their homes.
Moreover, the only way to protect America from the conservative judicial fanaticism of the Supreme Court is to reelect President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. There is simply no other way for us to go.
Let us do what we must do so that justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Mr. Speaker, you have heard from our distinguished colleague, the Honorable Terri Sewell from the great State of Alabama, on this topic for the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Mr. Speaker, all issues of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus are our constituents, Congress, and all Americans tonight.
Sewell).
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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Congresswoman Terri Sewell for her comments.
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