[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 109 (Friday, June 30, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6693-H6695]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gallery is admonished that there should 
be silence in the Chamber so that the Representative may continue with 
this special order.
  Mr. OWENS. Returning to quote Justice Ginsburg:

       Finally State legislatures may recognize communities that 
     have a particular racial or ethnic makeup, even in the 
     absence of any compulsion do so, in order to account for 
     interests common to or shared by persons grouped together. 
     When members of a racial group live together in one 
     community, a reapportionment plan that concentrates members 
     of the group in one district and excludes them from others 
     may reflect wholly legitimate purposes.
       Therefore, the fact that the Georgia General Assembly took 
     account of race in drawing district lines--a fact not in 
     dispute--does not render the State's plan invalid. To offend 
     the Equal Protection Clause, all agree the legislature had to 
     do more than consider race. How much more, is the issue that 
     divides the Court today.

  Continuing to quote Justice Ginsburg, her dissent:

       We say once again what has been said on many occasions: 
     Reapportionment is primarily the duty and responsibility of 
     the State through its legislature or other body, rather than 
     of a Federal court.
       Districting inevitably has sharp political impact, and 
     political decisions must be made by those charged with the 
     task. District lines are drawn to accommodate a myriad of 
     factors, geographic economic, historical and political, and 
     State legislatures, as arenas of compromise, electoral 
     accountability, are best positioned to mediate competing 
     claims; courts, with a mandate merely to adjudicate, are ill-
     equipped for this task.
       Federal courts have ventured now into the political thicket 
     of reapportionment when necessary to secure to members of 
     racial minorities equal voting rights, rights denied in many 
     States, including Georgia, until not long ago.

[[Page H6694]]

       The 15th amendment, which was ratified in 1870, declared 
     that the right to vote shall not be denied by any State on 
     account of race. That declaration, for many generations, was 
     often honored in the breach; it was greeted by a near century 
     of unremitting and ingenious defiance in several States, 
     including Georgia.

  I am quoting from the dissenting opinion of Justice Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg, and I want to repeat this sentence.

       The 15th amendment, ratified in 1870, declared that the 
     right to vote shall not be denied by any State on account of 
     race. That declaration, for many generations, was often 
     honored in the breach; it was greeted by a near century of 
     unremitting and ingenious defiance by several States, 
     including Georgia.
       After a brief interlude of black suffrage enforced by 
     Federal troops but accompanied by rampant victims against 
     blacks, Georgia held a constitutional convention in 1877. Its 
     purpose, according to the convention's leader, was, to fix it 
     so that the people shall rule and the Negro shall never be 
     heard from.
       In pursuit of this objective, Georgia enacted a cumulative 
     poll tax, requiring voters to show they had paid past as well 
     as current poll taxes; one historian described this tax as 
     the most effective bar to Negro suffrage ever devised.
       In 1890, the Georgia General Assembly authorized white 
     primaries; keeping blacks out of the Democratic primary 
     effectively excluded them from Georgia's political life, for 
     victory in the Democratic primary in those days was 
     tantamount to election.
       Early in this century Georgia Governor Hoke Smith persuaded 
     the legislature to pass the Disenfranchisement Act of 1908. 
     True to its title, this measure added various property, good 
     character, and literacy requirements that, as administrated, 
     served to keep blacks from voting. The result, as one 
     commentator observed 25 years later, was an almost absolute 
     exclusion of the Negro voice in State and Federal elections.
       Disenfranchised blacks had no electoral influence, hence no 
     muscle to lobby the legislature for change, and that is when 
     the Court intervened. It invalidated white primaries and 
     other burdens on minority voting.
       It was against this backdrop that the Court, construing the 
     Equal Protection Clause, undertook to ensure that 
     apportionment plans do not dilute minority voting strength. 
     By enacting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Congress 
     heightened Federal judicial involvement in apportionment, and 
     also fashioned a role for the Attorney General. Section 2 
     creates a Federal right of action to challenge vote dilution. 
     Section 5 requires States with a history of discrimination to 
     preclear any changes in voting practices with either a 
     Federal court or the Attorney General.

  And on and on it goes to show that the Voting Rights Act was in 
response to a definite, long-range oppression of the rights of African-
Americans at the
 ballot box. Justice Ginsburg makes it quite clear that the Equal 
Protection Clause does not rule out extraordinary measures being taken 
by the Federal Government to deal with past wrongs and to compensate 
for what happened in 232 years of slavery and the period of 
disenfranchisement that followed. She argues with the basic principle 
that is established by Justice O'Connor in Shaw versus Reno. She does 
not accept that premise.

  But then Justice Ginsburg moves on to another area. She says that 
even if you accept the reasoning of Shaw versus Reno, even if you 
accept Justice O'Connor's contention that race cannot be the 
predominant consideration in drawing districts, political districts, 
even if you accept that and apply it, the 11th District in Georgia 
meets the standards. The 11th District in Georgia is no more a district 
drawn with predominant race considerations than any other district in 
Georgia. It considers other factors also. It does not cross but a few 
county lines, and some districts cross a number of county lines. The 
11th District of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia is more 
regular than 28 districts in the country that are cited as being the 28 
most oddly-drawn districts in the country.
  So Justice Ginsburg applied the standard of Shaw versus Reno and 
still concludes that even if you applied that standard, the 11th 
Congressional District should not have been invalidated.
  I urge all Americans who really want to take a close look at what the 
Supreme Court did to not just read the majority opinion; read the 
dissenting opinion. It was a 5-to-4 decision and that 5-to-4 decision 
means that some day the reasoning of Justice Ginsburg may be the basis 
for overturning that decision.
  I also said before this was a serious matter. I want to address 
myself particularly to the African-American community. This is a 
serious matter. We have a situation where on that same Court, rendering 
several of the decisions that have affected school integration, 
affirmative action and now voting rights, is a justice who happens to 
be African-American.
  Justice Clarence Thomas is on that Supreme Court. Justice Clarence 
Thomas is an African-American, and there are some who believe that the 
Court is emboldened even more in its pursuit of the dismantling of 
voting rights and affirmative action, and set-asides as a result of 
Justice Thomas being there as an African-American.
  There are some who say that Justice Clarence Thomas is the most 
powerful African-American in the country, and there are some who say, 
being the most powerful African-American in the country, he is the most 
dangerous African-American in the country. There are some who say that 
his presence and his continued support for the opinions which are 
destroying affirmative action, set-asides, and voting rights constitute 
a special kind of problem.
  There are some who say that at least Justice Thomas is honest and he 
is clearly on the side of the conservatives, and, therefore, we have to 
respect his opinions. The greater danger they say may not be Clarence 
Thomas, but those who do not openly say they are 
conservative, who are masquerading as leaders in the African-American 
community, and they share the same opinions as Justice Clarence Thomas.
  Justice Clarence Thomas's case was well-known to most of us. The vote 
on Justice Thomas in the Senate got a great deal of publicity, and 
there were a number of us in Congress, including all of the members of 
the Congressional Black Caucus, who opposed the appointment of Justice 
Clarence Thomas at the very beginning, long before there was any 
discussions of his private life, which we think was wholly out of 
order. Long before that had happened, a position had been taken by the 
members of the Congressional Black Caucus against the appointment of 
Justice Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.
  As a member of the Education and Labor Committee, Justice Thomas in 
his previous employment as the head of EEOC had been before our 
committee numerous times, and Justice Thomas had clearly sabotaged the 
law he was hired to implement.
                              {time}  1615

  Justice Thomas defied the intent of Congress. He ignored the intent 
of Congress. He ignored the directions of the committee. So we had a 
clear position, and I adamantly opposed the appointment of Justice 
Clarence Thomas long before any question was raised about his personal 
life. I make that distinction because so much confusion resulted from 
the fact that an unprecedented situation developed where the personal 
life of an official seeking public office was aired in public.
  I totally agreed with Justice Thomas on one point. It was a high-
technology lynching. It should never have been considered in public. It 
should have been an inquiry held behind closed doors. It should have 
proceeded as all personnel matters proceed. It was a circus which was 
most unfortunate.
  Of course, there were many people who opposed him because of his 
record, opposed him because of his ideology, who were swayed by the 
problem that he faced, and later changed their opinion. But steadfastly 
we insisted that a record like the record of Justice Thomas in 
Government made it clear that he would be an enemy of the forces of 
civil rights, the forces of civil liberties, and of the African-
American people.
  I mention this because in these critical days when there is an 
attempt to dismantle all of the gains that have been made by the 
African-Americans over the last 50 years; in these critical days when 
the second reconstruction is being trampled, the one reconstruction was 
trampled, and all of the Members of Congress who were black were 
removed from Congress, we are not facing a situation quite that bad, 
but in many ways the economic impact of the decisions that are being 
made will be even harsher on the African-American population in 
general.
  So here we are in a critical situation. There is a state of 
emergency. Our leadership and people we select as leaders is critical, 
and what I am moving on to and what I am leading up to is 

[[Page H6695]]
the fact that there were many in the leadership who knew very clearly 
what the positions of Justice Thomas were, yet they supported him 
because he was an African-American.
  The danger in the African-American community now, the danger with 
respect to the leadership at this critical time is that we are going to 
again be taken in by the fact that the old standard of the black
 bourgeoise is allowed to predominate. Anybody who is educated, any, 
African American who achieves becomes a person we look up to, becomes a 
person we will not criticize. The standards within the African-American 
community for leadership, the standards get diluted.

  You do not have to clearly stand for policies, public policies, which 
are in the interests of the masses of African-American people. People 
who back away from those standards can still serve as leaders. They can 
enjoy the status of leaders. They can pronounce themselves as leaders 
and get away with it.
  It is important that at this critical moment we understand that many 
people who made the error of supporting Justice Thomas because he was 
an African American are the kind of people we must avoid in the future, 
the kind of people who have to come to grips with what are the basic 
policy provisions that should be set forth in the African-American 
community at a critical time like now.
  Can we have people voting for B-2 bombers which may cost $31 billion 
over a 7-year period and at the same time they are cutting Medicaid, at 
the same time they are cutting school lunches and at the same time 
draconian measures in the area of housing? The rescissions bill that 
was passed today cuts low-income housing by $7 billion. Can we have 
leaders who fail to understand that those are the public policies that 
impact on the greatest number of African-American people? And they have 
a duty to fight to see to it that those policies which are detrimental 
to our people do not go forward.
  Can we understand that there must be an evaluation of leadership so 
that we do not have an elected bourgeoisie carrying out their own 
private personal agenda while they ignore the public agenda of the 
African-American community?
  This decision by the Supreme Court and all the other things that have 
happened in the last few months are a warning. If we do not understand 
that there is a state of emergency now, we will never understand that. 
The Clarence Thomases have clearly proclaimed where they stand. There 
are some Members of the Congress, some black Members, who clearly 
proclaim they do not want to be part of the Black Caucus. They do not 
want to represent black interests.
  I admire people who clearly say where they stand. On the other hand, 
the Benedict Arnolds we must worry about.
  I want to close with a statement that I sent out to all of the 
African-American leadership. It is kind of a convoluted, indirect 
statement because during the time when Justice Clarence Thomas was 
under consideration for the appointment, even after the congressional 
Black Caucus was taking a position opposed to his appointment even 
after the NAACP had taken a position, even after the leading civil 
rights organizations had taken a position, there were leaders who came 
forward and said because he is black, we should not oppose him.
  One of those leaders wrote an article in the New York Times, and it 
particularly struck me at that time as being devastating to our 
position One of those leaders in the cultural field wrote a very 
piercing op-ed piece for the New York Times where she said, ``I know 
that he is guilty of not running the EEOC in accordance with the law. I 
know he has trampled on our interests on many occasions. I know this, I 
know that. All of this is true, but, still, he should be given a 
chance.'' And I have that ringing in my ears every time a Supreme Court 
decision comes down, ``Still, he should be given a chance. He will 
change.''
  That was Maya Angelous, a poet I respect a great deal, a poet that 
has become more famous since her famous poem was recited at the 
presidential inauguration. I think Maya Angelous and the other leaders 
who supported Clarence Thomas now need to go talk to Clarence Thomas. 
They need to also let the rest of the African-American community 
understand the implications of what is happening.
  So I have written a little statement here, Maya Angelous, I am 
addressing it to:
                       Go Talk to Clarence Thomas

     Maya talk to Clarence please
     He's knocking us down to our knees
     Clarence is talking real loud
     Running with the wrong crowd
     Dangerous opinions he always writes
     Hurling our people toward long poison nights
     Maya talk to Clarence please
     In the name of Black ancestors who drowned in the seas
     Talk to Clarence
     End his heathen roam
     Haul him to his heritage home
     Maya you recognized his record of public sin
     You promised that Clarence would be born again
     The miracle of Hugo Black and Earl Warren would be repeated
     Maya you promised ideological addiction would be defeated
     Maya time to make your move a sacred point you still have to 
           prove
     Maya talk to Clarence please!

  I would say that to all the other leaders who supported Justice 
Clarence Thomas. I would say that to all the other leaders who support 
compromise and are ready to forget about the interests of the thousands 
of African Americans out there who are suffering because public 
policies are being perpetuated, public policies are being perpetuated 
which will hurt them directly.
  The rescission bill, with all of its cuts of low-income housing, 
would hurt African Americans directly. The B-2 bomber, being taken as a 
priority over Medicaid, over free lunches, will hurt African-Americans 
directly.
  It is time we all understood that there is a state of emergency in 
the African-American community. The African-American leaders will have 
to rise to the occasion and lead in the interests of all African-
Americans.


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