On Tuesday, Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) and other members of the CBC spoke about voting rights on the House floor.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Illinois, Mr. Jackson is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
00:07Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and
00:14extend the remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of this special order.
00:20Without objection.
00:23Madam Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to co-anchor this Congressional
00:28Black Caucus special order hour, along with my distinguished colleague, Representative Terry
00:35Sewell of the great state of Alabama. For the next 60 minutes, members of the Congressional
00:40Black Caucus will have an opportunity to speak directly to the American people on the subject
00:46of the Shelby v. Holder and the American Voting Rights Act, specifically the John Lewis Voting
00:53Rights Act. On issue, an issue of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus,
00:59Congress and constituents, we represent and all Americans.
01:06It is now my privilege, Mr. Speaker, to yield to the Honorable Congresswoman Terry Sewell
01:12from the great state of Alabama. I thank you, Congresswoman Sewell.
01:24Thank you.
01:27Today, we in the Congressional Black Caucus gather to observe the 11th anniversary of the Supreme
01:34Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision and to reflect on the state of voting rights in America.
01:42It was exactly 11 years ago today when the Supreme Court's conservative majority
01:49got at the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, eliminating voter protections and
01:56removing federal oversight from states with a proven record of voter discrimination.
02:03We have seen in those 11 years, 31 states institute at least 103 new laws to restrict
02:12voting laws. And it is no surprise that those laws disproportionately target African American
02:20and minority voters. The consequences of the Shelby decision have been clear and devastating.
02:27Long lines, strict ID requirements that require time and money to obtain,
02:35closed polling stations in communities of color, bans on early voting and absentee voting,
02:42the purging of voter rolls, and the list goes on and on. In my home state of Alabama,
02:50lawmakers have recently made it a felony to assist someone with their absentee ballot.
02:56While these tactics may be new, we know that they are borrowed from the same playbook
03:03that has been used for generations to silence the voices of African Americans and other minority
03:10voters. While black voters may not need to count the number of jelly beans in a jar,
03:16modern day barriers to voting are no less pernicious than the poll tax and the literacy
03:23test of the past. In Shelby versus Holder, the Supreme Court was clear that the onus was on
03:30Congress to come up with a modern day formula to determine which states are subject to federal
03:36oversight. Well, I'm proud to say that we have done just that. Working together with our nation's
03:44premier civil rights and voting rights organizations, we have come up with a modern day formula to
03:50ensure states and localities with a recent history of voter discrimination are prohibited from
03:56restricting voter access. We even named it after our late great colleague and hero, Congressman
04:05John Lewis. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which we introduced for the
04:13fifth time in September, will protect the rights of every American to vote. But despite our efforts,
04:21our colleagues across the aisle have continued to block these efforts from being considered.
04:28The fact that voting rights has been a partisan issue is frankly baffling to me. After all, the
04:35Voting Rights Act of 1965 was reauthorized not once, not twice, but three times with broad
04:44bipartisan support, most recently by President George W. Bush. Yet all of a sudden, our colleagues
04:52across the aisle have abandoned the issue of voting rights, choosing instead to spread
04:58disinformation and misinformation and to sow doubt about voters and the integrity of our elections.
05:06It is sad, Mr. Speaker, and it is shameful. As elected officials, we should be working tirelessly
05:13to ensure all Americans are able to vote instead of picking and choosing who can have access to
05:20the ballot box and who cannot. Mr. Speaker, this fight is extremely personal for me.
05:28It was in my hometown of Selma, Alabama, nearly 60 years ago, where foot soldiers like John Lewis
05:36risked their lives on the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the equal right of all Americans to vote.
05:44They prayed, they protested, they bled, and some even died for that right. It was their sacrifice
05:53that gave us the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the crown jewel of the civil rights and voting rights
06:01movement. Those foot soldiers were ordinary Americans who had the audacity to make this
06:08nation live up to its highest ideals of equality and justice for all. They leave behind a strong
06:17legacy of courage and sacrifice, and we must ensure that it was not in vain. It was John Lewis
06:25who told us that the right to vote is precious. It's almost sacred. It is the most fundamental
06:33non-violent tool in our democracy. Mr. Speaker, our vote is our voice, and our democracy is
06:43strongest when every American is able to make their voices heard at the ballot box. So as we
06:50gather to observe the 11th anniversary of the Shelby County v. Holder decision, let us draw
06:58courage from the sacrifices of our foremothers and our forefathers. We are not asking anyone to
07:05put their lives on the line. We are simply asking our Republican colleagues to have the political
07:11courage to do what is right. We in the Congressional Black Caucus are demanding that Congress take up
07:18and pass the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and to do it without delay.
07:26We are united in this fight, and we are ready to get into some good trouble. I thank the gentlemen
07:33from Illinois for yielding me this time, and I look forward to a rigorous occasion in which we
07:40talk about the importance of today being the 11th anniversary of the Shelby County v. Holder
07:46decision, and our need to pass in immediate terms the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement
07:56Act. We in the Congressional Black Caucus are ready to get into some good trouble,
08:01and tonight I know that we will make sure that this good trouble is put to good use. Thank you,
08:07and I yield back to the gentlemen from Illinois. I thank the gentlewoman, Congresswoman Terry Sewell
08:15from the great state of Alabama, and I wish to be totally associated with all of her great remarks
08:21and scholarship. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because 11 years ago the Supreme Court of the United
08:29States proved that it lacked the judicial imagination befitting an institution clothed
08:37with immense power. As 11 years ago the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
08:46and frighteningly 11 years ago the highest court in the land decided that racism had magically
08:53evaporated in America, and that hatred had somehow receded quietly into the history of the republic
09:02never to be seen or heard from again. 11 years ago nine judges on the Supreme Court decided that
09:10they were social scientists with a particular expertise in racism in the politics of voting,
09:17and instead of being judges who were hired by the American people to decide the constitutionality
09:24of a law, they rather took the position that the court knew more about voter suppression
09:30than the people who have dedicated their entire lives to the subject. Nine judges on the Supreme
09:38Court, Mr. Speaker, thought they had a better working knowledge of the state of racism in America
09:44than people living with it every day. But I rise tonight to declare emphatically that nothing
09:50could be further from the truth. This Supreme Court does not know more about racism in America
09:58than do the people who are the survivors of it. The members of the Supreme Court are not experts
10:04on everything. They are not omniscient. They are not infallible. They are not beyond all moral
10:12and political reproach. In fact, based upon what we have recently heard about certain members of
10:18the Supreme Court, it would seem that the complete opposite in fact is true. When it comes to the
10:25Supreme Court as it is currently configured, fallibility abounds. And I rise tonight, Mr.
10:33Speaker, because the elected representatives of the American people cannot allow six unelected
10:40and seemingly uninformed individuals to undo the moral and democratic gains won by the civil rights
10:48movement over 50 years without doing something about it. All over this country, we have seen
10:55the disparate impact that the Shelby County decision has had on voting access in America.
11:02And what was once thought to be a regional problem has now metastasized and become nationalized.
11:10Since the Shelby decision, every region of this country is struggling to overcome novel attempts
11:17at voter suppression and the like. And regrettably, 11 years ago, those of us in the civil rights
11:24community told the leaders of this nation what was going to happen, what we told America that
11:31gutting the Voting Rights Act would cause voter suppression to spread like a virus in a second
11:36grade classroom. And that's exactly what has happened. That's exactly where we find ourselves
11:42today. And those of us who then believe that the only threat to democracy are events like unto
11:48those on January 6th are painfully naive. The greatest threat to democracy isn't the outright
11:54violence that takes place when citizens who are motivated by lies engage in hand-to-hand
12:01compact with one another, but rather by the legalized and the systemic unraveling of the
12:06cherished democratic norms. But those of us who love America cannot sit idly by and allow the
12:13darkness of bigotry to once again embed itself into the electoral systems of this country as it
12:20once was. Those of us who have a constitutional mandate to establish justice, ensure domestic
12:28tranquility, and secure blessings of liberty cannot allow what African Americans did to expand the
12:36general welfare of the country's commitment to opportunity be erased. Nothing is more indelible
12:43and inherently fundamental to the success of a thriving democracy than is the
12:50quality of a citizen's right to vote. Because in America, voting is the manifestation of citizenship.
12:59In this country, if you cannot vote, you are not a citizen. And what most people miss about the
13:05civil rights movement is that at its core, it was an attempt to empower African Americans with the
13:11rights afforded to us by virtue of our citizenship. The right to vote is our birthright. And yet,
13:19hundreds of years, this country denied African Americans born in this nation what was legitimately
13:26due to them. And it is only through blood, sweat, and tears that African Americans were able to
13:32fight in every war to once again try to regain full citizenship. It was only because people who
13:39are willing to give their lives that Black people in this nation can cast a ballot for the candidate
13:45of their choice. And we are not going to let anyone take those rights away. Reflecting upon
13:52Shelby v. Holder, 11 years later, I'd like to quote the Assistant State's Attorney General
13:59Kristen Clark. She said, this anniversary provides an important opportunity to reflect upon the
14:06profound consequences of that opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down the key
14:14provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and left millions of voters of color without the
14:21mechanisms that had stopped voting discrimination before it could be implemented. When President
14:27Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, he described it as one of the most
14:32fundamental laws in the entire history of the American freedom. The Voting Rights Act was a
14:40product of bold actions by Congress. It forcibly addressed the problem that nearly a century after
14:47the Reconstruction Amendment, millions of Americans were still denied the ability to cast their vote
14:54and participate in our democracy because of their race. One of the most important pieces of the
14:59Voting Rights Act that was taken away was Section 5, its pre-clearance requirement, enacted in 1965
15:08and reauthorized by Congress in 1970, 1975, 1982, 2006. Section 5 required jurisdictions that had a
15:19history of voting discrimination to obtain approval from the Attorney General or a federal court
15:27before implementing changes in election procedures and practices. Covered jurisdictions could not
15:33implement their proposed voting changes until they had received pre-clearance. Thanks to Section 5,
15:41jurisdictions that tried to make changes that had a discriminatory impact were adopted with a
15:48discriminatory purpose were blocked from doing so. More than 800 proposed changes were altered or
15:54withdrawn in the period after 1982 alone. A repository of the Department's Section 5
16:03objection letters, which provided an official record on each objection as well as the basis of
16:09the decisions, can be found. The Shelby County ruling marked a significant turning point
16:16for voting rights in the United States. In its decision, the Supreme Court invalidated on
16:22constitutional grounds Section 4b of the Voting Rights Act, which provided the formula for determining
16:28which jurisdictions were covered under Section 5. Without that formula, all jurisdictions were
16:35released from coverage overnight. Section 5 was rendered effectively inoperative, freeing states
16:42and localities to enact voting laws without federal oversight. States wasted no time implementing
16:50election changes that had not or might not have been survived the pre-clearance requirement. On
16:57June 30, 2025, the very day the Supreme Court issued the Shelby County opinion, Texas officials
17:06announced that they would implement a discriminatory and burdensome photo identification statute.
17:12And on June 26, the day after the Shelby County decision, Senator Tom O'Connor, chairman of the
17:19North Carolina Rules Committee, publicly stated that North Carolina legislature
17:26would be moving forward with an omnibus law imposing multiple voting restrictions. Why weren't
17:32they trying to expand voting? They said, we will use this decision to restrict voting. In the absence
17:39of pre-clearance, the statute, the statutes went into effect and the departments, along with private
17:45parties, had to file suits under a different part of the Voting Rights Act to enjoin them.
17:51Mr. Speaker, states have adopted photo identification requirements, limited those
17:57who can provide assistance at polling places, reduced options for early voting, closed polling
18:04places, and unfortunately, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg proved prophetic when she observed
18:12in her Shelby dissent that ending pre-clearance was like, and I quote,
18:18throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet, close quote.
18:24And without Section 5, new laws can be challenged only through long, protracted, resource-intensive
18:32case-by-case legislation and fights. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is the most fundamental
18:39piece of legislation pending before the United States Congress and it must be enacted with all
18:45deliberate speed. This is something, Mr. Speaker, we must do. Securing the right to vote is the
18:52moral obligation we have to the principles of America and to whatever we believe is a future
18:58worthy of our children. And let me remind my colleagues that the progenitors of suppression
19:04do not stop with their initial targets. Today, the votes of African Americans are being suppressed
19:11all over the nation, but tomorrow it might well be yours. Do not forget the lessons of histories.
19:19The people who are coming for our rights will never be satisfied with what they have attempted
19:25to do to us. Soon they will look for new targets, that is to say, new objects of their resentment,
19:32their ridicule, and their scorn. But what the Supreme Court and Shelby decision has reinforced
19:40in no uncertain terms is the fact that elections have consequences. The inability to elect a
19:46Democratic president in 2016 led to this horrible decision and those of us who stand on the principle
19:55on the precipice of a national election must remember this invaluable lesson. Let us not
20:01forget in 2016, the woman with the most votes did not win the presidency. Whatever policy differences
20:09we may have with the President of the United States, we cannot allow the protection of our
20:14civil rights to be left in the hands of judges who so ideologically are motivated that they are
20:21unapologetically flying insurrectionist flags upside down at their homes. And the only way to
20:29protect America from the conservative judicial fanaticism of the Supreme Court is to re-elect
20:35President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. There is simply no other way for us to go.
20:43So let us do what we must do so that justice will roll down like waters and righteousness
20:50like a mighty stream. Mr. Speaker, you've heard from my distinguished colleague,
20:57the Honorable Terry Sewell from the great state of Alabama, and all and on this topic for the
21:03John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Mr. Speaker, all issues of great importance to the
21:10Congressional Black Caucus, our constituents, Congress, and all Americans tonight. With that,
21:16Mr. Speaker, I yield back. The gentleman yields.
21:23Mr. Speaker, I motion to adjourn the House—no?
21:42I yield back to my colleague, the Honorable Terry Sewell from the great state of Alabama.
21:46The gentlewoman from Alabama is recognized.
21:50So, Mr. Speaker, as we conclude our special order hour on this very important day,
21:57the 11th anniversary of the Shelby County v. Holder decision, we issue a call to action.
22:05We in the Congressional Black Caucus understand that the vote is the most fundamental,
22:11the most fundamental tool of our democracy, and I cannot believe that 60 years after John Lewis
22:21was bludgeoned on a bridge, yes, 60 years after he was bludgeoned on a bridge, that my colleague
22:28and I stand here today to talk about restoring the full protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
22:37It tells us that progress is elusive, and every generation has to fight and fight again in order
22:44to hold on to the progress that we've made and to extend it. John Lewis reminded us that ours is not
22:52a cause of one day, one week, one month. No, our struggle is a struggle of a lifetime, and everyone
23:00must do their part. Well, we here in the Congressional Black Caucus are doing our part.
23:08We are signing off and making sure that everyone understands that the alarms are going off.
23:19The alarms are going off because every American does not have equal access to the ballot box.
23:26We see states all across this country that are imposing more restrictive voting laws.
23:33Voter suppression has become the cause of the day, and we must do our part, and our part
23:41is to pass the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and to fully restore
23:47the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Now, we know that the Supreme Court told Congress
23:54that we must come up with a modern day formula. Well, that's exactly what this
24:00bill does. It has a look back of 25 years. We're not trying to make Alabama and Mississippi
24:10be held accountable for what happened in the 1960s and the 1950s. No, we're talking about
24:161997 and moving forward. We're talking about recent acts of discrimination, voter discrimination,
24:25and we know that if we look back to just 25 years, we would even look back 15 years.
24:31We know that there will be jurisdiction after jurisdiction that still has suppressive voting
24:36laws, and as long as states are suppressing the right to vote, I believe that we have a
24:45moral obligation in the federal government to provide oversight. We know that that oversight
24:52is critically important, and that's exactly what the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement
24:59Act will do, and as I take my seat, I want it to be heard around this nation that we in the
25:07Congressional Black Caucus will not rest. We will not rest until we pass the John Robert
25:15Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and to the gentlemen from Illinois, it has been a pleasure
25:22talking about this most important topic. I know that I've welcomed you and your father
25:28time and time again to Selma, Alabama to cross that bridge one more time. We know that a very
25:36frail John Lewis with a body riddled of cancer took to that bridge one more time in 2021,
25:48and he told us to never give up, never give in, that ours is a just cause, and because of that,
25:59we stand tall, the Congressional Black Caucus, in our commitment to never go back to those days.
26:08We need to pass the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and with the help of
26:13the Congressional Black Caucus and the gentlemen from Illinois, we will do just that. Thank you,
26:19and I yield back my time. I thank the Honorable Congressman Terry Sewell. Mr. Speaker, I would
26:27like to yield the controlling balance of my time. The gentleman yields.