Fighting Voter Suppression

Floor Speech

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Mr. FIELDS. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentlewoman from Virginia and the gentleman from South Carolina for organizing this Special Order at a very important time.

Before the 14th Amendment, I was considered three-fifths of a man. It was not until 1870, through the ratification of the 15th Amendment, that I received the right to vote. It wasn't until 1920, through the passage of the 19th Amendment, that women received the right to vote.

Despite all men and women having the full Federal right to vote by 1920, States still devised schemes to impose draconian restrictions to prevent voter registration for people of color.

These restrictions were Jim Crow laws. I never understood it, but in 1988, when I ran for office for the first time, I wanted my grandmother to vote for me. I was leading folk to the polls to register to vote, and I tried to get my grandmother to go. I said, ``Grandmother, why in the world would you not go to vote for your grandson?'' She said to me, ``Sit down, son. Let me just tell you a story.'' She went to register to vote, and they gave her a literacy test. She had to state the preamble to the Constitution, my grandmother, in Louisiana.

I finally got her to register to vote, and she voted until she passed.

They gave them tests like citizen tests, voucher tests. They had to get other people to vouch for them. In Louisiana, we had something called all-White primaries, which meant Blacks could not even vote in primary elections.

One of the first successes we have had in the battle of voting rights was in 1944 with the Supreme Court decision of Smith v. Allwright when they outlawed White-only primaries.

Following this decision, Black voter registration went up. It moved from 1,000 in 1944 to 120,000 in 1952 and 160,000 in 1956.

Despite some legal progress, Jim Crow laws were still alive and well in Southern States. Substantial progress was made through the Voting Rights Act of 1956, 1957, and 1960, which authorized the United States Attorney General to file lawsuits on behalf of Americans who were denied the right to vote and gave them the ability to investigate threats on civil rights.

A watershed moment occurred when we passed the 1964 Voting Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which made Jim Crow practices and discrimination illegal. Thank God for subsection 5. I will take a moment of personal privilege to talk about that subsection because it really affected me.

Every law that was passed in my State of Louisiana had to be precleared by the Justice Department, and then there was a challenge to that, Shelby v. Holder.

Every progress we have made, all the sacrifices all the leaders have made, like John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Shirley Chisholm, and Jesse Jackson, they kept making these pushes because they knew it was a hard time for people.

Lastly, let me just tell you, these State laws are real. Last year, I served as a member of the Louisiana State Senate, and several attempts were made to make it more difficult on a State level for people to register to vote: S. 226 dealt with absentee ballots, and it required you to put your mother's maiden name on your voter application or your vote would be thrown out. S. 218 prohibits individuals from assisting elderly people in registering to vote.

I say to you, Mr. Speaker, Congress should advance legislation like the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act to increase equal access across the voting ballot.

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