[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 23, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 23, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
 JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IS ABANDONING ITS RESPONSIBILITY ON VOTING RIGHTS 
                                  ACT

  (Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express a 
shameful condition, that condition is the Court's consistent attack on 
the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But what is more shameful than that, is the 
inaction of the U.S. Department of Justice.
  It appears that the Justice Department has aborted its responsibility 
to defend one of the most important Federal statutes enacted by this 
Congress in this century.
  Many of the lawsuits challenging congressional districts as a product 
of racial gerrymandering are districts that were precleared and 
approved under subsection 5 of the Voting Rights Act by the Department 
of Justice.
  I am of the belief, that if they were constitutional then they must 
be constitutional now. Certainly, no one would even opine the thought 
that the Department of Justice would approve any congressional plan 
that violates the constitutional rights of citizens of this country.
  The Department of Justice is now leaving the defense of the Voting 
Rights Act--a Federal statute mind you--in the hands of States that 
have a history of disenfranchising African-Americans and other 
minorities. That is like leaving the fox to guard the hen house.
  Mr. Speaker, I call on the Department of Justice in general and the 
Attorney General in particular to live up to its responsibility and 
fiduciary obligation to defend the Voting Rights Act.

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