Terminating Presidential Election Campaign Fund and Election Assistance Commission

Floor Speech

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Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, I offer the final amendment of the bill which, if adopted, will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. Instead, the bill will proceed to final passage, as amended. The purpose of my amendment is simple. It deals with one of my most valuable rights as an American citizen.

It is a right which many Americans throughout the course of our history have shared blood, sweat, and tears to protect, including our colleague and my dear friend, Representative John Lewis of Georgia. He marched from Selma to Montgomery and endured billy clubs, horses, and tear gas to preserve this sacred right.

The right to which I'm referring is the right to vote, as enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and further protected in the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and various other measures.

Today, nearly five decades after the Voting Rights Act was signed into law and nearly 10 years since the Help America Vote Act, there is still an unprecedented attack on voting rights in States across this country.

Yet, the underlying legislation before the House today would abolish one of the key provisions of the Help America Vote Act, the Election Assistance Commission, which was designed to avoid a repeat of the turmoil surrounding the 2000 Presidential election in Florida, where problems with absentee and military ballots played a large role and led to many of these ballots not being counted.

If the commission is abolished, it will undermine America's faith in the integrity of our elections. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, more than 5 million Americans in 2012 could be adversely impacted by laws that tighten or restrict voting that were put into effect just this year. The number is larger than the margin of victory in two of the last Presidential elections.

Seniors, the disabled, and our Nation's veterans are now being turned away from the polls for not having the photo identification. Popular reforms like early voting and same-day voter registration are being rolled back.

Mr. Speaker, this situation should not be happening in the United States of America today.

My final amendment, therefore, is simple. It states that any successor to the Election Assistance Commission shall remain responsible for the administration or enforcement of laws relating to the rights of the elderly, the disabled, members of the uniformed services, and overseas citizens to vote and cast ballots in elections for Federal office.

In signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson said that ``the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.''

If this final amendment is approved, we can continue to tear down the walls of injustice and ensure that our democracy is open for all Americans to deliberate, to participate, and to engage with each other.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I yield the balance of my time to my colleague, Representative Marcia Fudge of Ohio.

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