[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 110 (Wednesday, September 15, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H7224-H7232]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    AMERICANS NEED THE RIGHT TO VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus 
today will be hosting here on the floor a special order regarding the 
protection of the fundamental right to vote for all Americans. Given 
the crucial nature of the up and coming election, the caucus' chairman, 
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) and other members of the CBC 
have requested this time to talk with all Americans about some 
fundamental flaws that exist in our system.
  Mr. Speaker, the Bible tells us, in the story of Matthew, of a wise 
man who built his house on a rock, and when the rain fell and the 
floods came and the winds blew and beat upon his house, it did not fall 
because he built it on a rock. But there was a foolish man who built 
his house on sand, and when the rain fell and the floods came and the 
winds blew and beat against his house, it fell.
  Mr. Speaker, elections in the United States are like the foolish man 
who built his house on sand. Our election system is built on the sand 
of States' rights. We need to build it on a rock, the rock of a new 
amendment to the Constitution, affirmatively guaranteeing every 
American an individual right to vote and granting Congress the 
authority to create a unitary voting system.
  The United States sees itself as the center of world democracy, so 
most Americans will be surprised, even shocked, to discover that we do 
not have the right to vote. Unlike the Constitution's First Amendment 
guarantee of an individual right to freedom of religion, to freedom of 
press, to freedom of assembly, the individual right to vote is not in 
the Constitution.
  Most Americans are also unaware that, according to a joint study by 
Caltech and MIT, somewhere between 4 and 6 million votes nationally 
were not counted in 2000. Many States had similar problems to what 
occurred in Florida. My State of Illinois was the worst. Florida got 
the attention only because of the closeness of their vote.
  Voting in America is overseen by 13,000 different election 
administrations, all separate and unequal, which is reminiscent of the 
legal theory that established Jim Crow segregation for 58 years as a 
result of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision.

                              {time}  1430

  The 15th, 19th and 26th amendments prohibit discrimination in voting 
on the basis of race, sex and age respectively, but they do not 
affirmatively guarantee the right to vote. Voting in America is 
essentially a 10th amendment issue, States rights, and therefore we end 
up with 50 different State systems, 3,067 different county systems and 
20,000 different municipal systems in the United States.
  The Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore that the individual citizen 
has no fundamental constitutional right to vote for electors for 
President of the United States. In other words, Florida's State right 
to oversee the election took precedence over counting every individual 
vote; or legally, States rights triumphed over individual rights. In 
essence the Court said since there is no affirmative right to vote in 
the Constitution, what does the Florida State statute say? It says that 
the former Secretary of State is in charge of the election, and 
according to Florida law, all of the votes must be counted by midnight, 
December 12.
  Since the Court decision came down at 10 p.m. on December 12, the 
Secretary of State said, in essence, if you cannot count all of the 
votes in the next 2 hours, President Bush is the President. But just in 
case the Court had ordered all of the votes counted and it turned out 
that Vice President Gore had won the most popular votes in Florida, the 
Republican controlled, or it could be a Democratic controlled, 
legislature had a backup plan: Based on the fact there is no right to 
vote in the Constitution of the United States for the individual 
citizen, that the Constitution says the right to elect electors resides 
in the State legislature. The Florida State legislature was prepared to 
ignore the 6 million popular votes, elect their own electors and send 
them to Congress for certification. That would have been both legally 
and constitutionally permissible.
  The Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, is not the answer. It is built on 
sand, States' rights. I am convinced if Congress had the will, under 
our current Constitution it could do much more than HAVA to strengthen 
the administration of a unitary voting system and protect and fully 
count all votes.
  But I am unconvinced, absent a voting rights amendment, that any 
solution to these and any of our other most pressing voting rights 
problems will be universal or sustainable. How do we change the current 
system and prevent another Florida, another Illinois, or some Ohio or 
some other State from undermining our election system? How can we 
achieve equal protection under the law in 13,000 separate and unequally 
administered voting jurisdictions? Some voting jurisdictions use 
computers. Others use punch card voting. Some allow Internet voting, 
others do not. Some allow lever voting systems. Some voters simply 
write an ``X'' next to the candidate of their choice; all separate and 
all unequal.
  If we as Americans can guarantee for the people of Afghanistan the 
fundamental right to vote, and we can guarantee the fundamental right 
to vote for the people of Iraq, then of course we should be able to 
guarantee for every single American the fundamental right to vote.
  Look at the issue of felons. In the State of Illinois if one commits 
a felony, after one has served their time, the State of Illinois under 
State law reenfranchises felons. In Florida once one commits a felony, 
one will never be reenfranchised because the State prohibits felons who 
have served their time from ever regaining the franchise. But in 
Vermont, even if you are in jail you are still allowed to vote in 
presidential and local elections, in some local elections.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to guarantee the fundamental right to vote for 
every single American in our Constitution and only by adding an 
affirmative right to vote amendment to the Constitution, such an 
amendment would give Congress the power to establish a unitary voting 
system, ensure that every vote is counted, and grant equal protection 
under the law for all voters.
  House Joint Resolution 28 is such an amendment, and I urge Members to 
sign on as cosponsors.
  Mr. Speaker, no one has been traveling across the country as much, 
analyzing the Nation's voting system and trying to raise the 
consciousness of the Congress to guarantee and secure democracy for all 
Americans quite like the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, 
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

         Fighting for a Right To Vote Constitutional Amendment

                 (By Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.)

       Most Americans believe that the ``legal right to vote'' in 
     our democracy is explicit (not just implicit) in our 
     Constitution and laws. However, our Constitution only 
     provides for non-discrimination in voting on the basis of 
     race, sex, and age in the 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments 
     respectively.
       The U.S. Constitution contains no explicit affirmative 
     individual right to vote!
       Even though the ``vote of the people'' is perceived as 
     supreme in our democracy--because voting rights are 
     protective of all other rights--the Supreme Court in Bush v. 
     Gore constantly reminded lawyers that there is no explicit or 
     fundamental right to suffrage in the Constitution--``the 
     individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to 
     vote for electors for the President of the United States.'' 
     (Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 104 (2000).

[[Page H7225]]

       Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice 
     Antonin Scalia besieged Gore's lawyer with inquiries premised 
     on the assumption that there is no constitutional right of 
     suffrage in the election of a president, and state 
     legislatures have the legal power to choose presidential 
     electors without recourse to a popular vote. ``In the eyes of 
     the [Supreme] Court, democracy is rooted not in the right of 
     the American people to vote and govern but in a set of state-
     based institutional arrangements for selecting leaders.'' 
     (Overruling Democracy--The Supreme Court v. The American 
     People, by James B. Raskin, p. 7)
       While a voting rights constitutional amendment would be 
     strictly non-partisan, nevertheless, the 2000 election is a 
     splendid example of the undemocratic nature of our currently 
     administered election systems--and there are literally 
     thousands of them. Each state and the District of Columbia 
     (51), counties (3,067), and thousands of municipalities 
     administer their own election system under state law, with 
     great flexibility on many issues in the variously 
     administered voting jurisdictions. That's the chaotic dynamic 
     that was in play in Florida's 67 counties.
       In 2000, if every American had had an individual 
     constitutional right to vote, every vote would have had to be 
     counted. However, under our current ``states' rights'' 
     arrangement the state legislature and state law took legal 
     precedence over the individual vote and the individual voter.
       It is also important to point out that if candidate George 
     Bush had lost in the Supreme Court in 2000, Florida's 
     Republican-controlled legislature was prepared to ignore the 
     six million popular votes cast in Florida. Under state law, 
     they were determined to elect, select, choose, and hand pick, 
     if necessary, their own ``Bush presidential electors'' and 
     send them to Congress for certification--even if it had 
     turned out that Al Gore won the most popular votes in 
     Florida.
       Thus, in terms of the political consequences of our present 
     arrangement, if all of the votes legally cast in 2000 had 
     been counted, Al Gore and not George Bush would be President 
     of the United States today.
       The principled commitment ought to be honest, fair and 
     efficient elections for everyone, for all time. However, 
     after 2000, any Democrat who cannot support adding a voting 
     rights amendment to the Constitution ought to be asked to 
     explain why!
       Thus, even if all votes had been counted and Al Gore had 
     won Florida's popular vote, and his electors had been sent to 
     Congress, under our current Constitution the Florida 
     legislature could have sent their slate of Bush electors to 
     Congress and it would have been perfectly legal--and a 
     ``strict constructionist'' or necessary constitutional 
     interpretation--for Congress to have recognized the Bush 
     electors.
       Only a Voting Rights Amendment can fix these flaws in our 
     Constitution and administration of elections.
       The 10th Amendment to the Constitution states: ``The powers 
     not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor 
     prohibited by it to the State, are reserved to the States 
     respectively, or to the people.'' Since the word ``vote'' 
     appears in the Constitution only with respect to non-
     discrimination, the so-called right to vote is a ``state 
     right.'' Only a constitutional amendment would give every 
     American an individual affirmative citizenship right to vote.
       Without the constitutional right to vote, Congress can pass 
     voter legislation--and I support progressive electoral reform 
     legislation--but it leaves the ``states' rights'' system in 
     place. Currently, Congress mostly uses financial and other 
     incentives to entice the states to cooperate and comply with 
     the law. It's one reason there have been so many problems 
     with the recently passed Help America Vote Act, and why many 
     states still have not fully complied with the law.
       Our ``states' rights'' voting system is structured to be 
     ``separate and unequal.'' As we saw in the 2000 election, 
     there are 50 states, 3,067 counties, tens of thousands of 
     cities, and many different machines and methods of voting--
     all ``separate and unequal.''
       There's only one way to legally guarantee ``an equal right 
     to vote'' to every individual American and that is to add a 
     Voting Rights Amendment to the Constitution!
       The lack of basic political rights for all Americans was 
     made even clearer in Alexander v. Mineta, a case to gain 
     political representation for the disenfranchised citizens in 
     our nation's capital, the District of Columbia. Ignoring the 
     democratic ideal of voting, the court said, ``The Equal 
     Protection Clause does not protect the right of all citizens 
     to vote, but rather the right of all qualified citizens to 
     vote'' (Alexander v. Daley, 90 F. Supp. 2d, 35, 66, emphasis 
     added) ``To be qualified, you must belong to a `state' within 
     the meaning of Article I and the Seventeenth Amendment and 
     must be granted the right to vote by the state.'' (Overruling 
     Democracy--The Supreme Court vs. The American People, By 
     Jamin B. Raskin, p. 36)
       I believe that voting is not only a democratic right, it's 
     a human right. That human right is not in our Constitution! 
     That's why I have proposed legislation to add a voting rights 
     amendment to the U.S. Constitution based on the individual 
     right of all Americans to vote. It was introduced in the U.S. 
     House of Representatives as House Joint Resolution 28. It 
     reads as follows:
       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of 
     each House concurring therein), That the following article is 
     proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United 
     States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as 
     part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of 
     three-fourths of the several States:
       `Section 1. All citizens of the United States, who are 
     eighteen years or age or older, shall have the right to vote 
     in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the 
     citizen resides. The right to vote shall not be denied or 
     abridged by the United Sates, any State, or any other public 
     or private person or entity, except that the United States or 
     any State may establish regulations narrowly tailored to 
     produce efficient and honest elections.
       `Section 2. Each State shall administer public elections in 
     the State in accordance with election performance standards 
     established by the Congress. The Congress shall reconsider 
     such election performance standards at least once every four 
     years to determine if higher standards should be established 
     to reflect improvements in methods and practices regarding 
     the administration of elections.
       `Section 3. Each State shall provide any eligible voter the 
     opportunity to register and vote on the day of any public 
     election.
       `Section 4. Each State and the District constituting the 
     seat of Government of the United States shall establish and 
     abide by rules for appointing its respective number of 
     Electors. Such rules shall provide for the appointment of 
     Electors on the day designated by the Congress for holding an 
     election for President and Vice President and shall ensure 
     that each Elector votes for the candidate for President and 
     Vice President who received a majority of the popular vote in 
     the State or District.
       `Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce this 
     article by appropriate legislation.'
       With this amendment in the Constitution, all of the votes 
     in 2000--to the best of our human ability and using credible 
     and uniform criteria--would have had to have been counted. No 
     unnecessary or arbitrary timeline cutoff would have been 
     allowed with regard to counting votes. And the Florida 
     legislature could not have even thought about ignoring the 
     six million popular Florida votes in order to select 
     presidential electors independent of the popular vote. Under 
     this amendment, the popular vote could never be ignored and 
     an independent legislative selection of electors could never 
     happen.
       In light of the presidential fiasco in Florida in 2000, and 
     during the South Carolina Democratic presidential candidate's 
     debate on May 3, 2003, Rev. Al Sharpton asked Florida Senator 
     Bob Graham if he would support adding a voting rights 
     amendment to the Constitution. In essence he said the 
     following: ``I haven't seen the legislation, but probably 
     not. I believe states should remain in control of election 
     procedures. And I'm against federalizing the election 
     process.''
       Let's analyze his statement.
       1. It means Senator Graham essentially supports the status 
     quo when it comes to voting rights because, under current 
     law, 2000 could happen again in Florida or elsewhere. The 
     winner of the popular vote losing has happened three previous 
     times in our history--1824, 18776 and 1888. Most Americans 
     are totally unaware that, nationally, according to a joint 
     study by the California Institute of Technology and 
     Massachusetts Institute of Technology, somewhere between four 
     and six million votes were not counted in 2000 because many 
     states had similar problems to what occurred in Florida. 
     Other states' election systems didn't get the same exposure 
     as Florida's because the winner in other states was not in 
     doubt. For example, Illinois was worse than Florida--it 
     didn't count nearly 200,000 votes with similar problems to 
     Florida's--but because Gore won Illinois by over 300,000 
     votes, the winner of the state's electoral votes was not in 
     doubt. In Illinois and other states too, most of the 
     problems--with voting and machines--were concentrated in the 
     poor and minority communities.
       ``Amazingly, the government of the United States conducts 
     and provides no official count of the vote for president.'' 
     (Overruling Democracy--The Supreme Court vs. The American 
     People, by Jamin B. Raskin, p. 66) Can you imagine the United 
     States recognizing a close and hotly contested third world 
     ``democratic'' election where the citizens had no right to 
     vote, as much as six percent of the total vote was not 
     counted; where there were no official results provided by the 
     government; and where that country's Supreme Court declared 
     its personal and ideological friend the winner, even though 
     the declared winner did not get the most popular votes?
       2. It means Senator Graham supports ``states' rights'' when 
     it comes to voting rights. But I would remind Senator Graham 
     and others, slavery was not supported directly in the 
     Constitution. The word ``slavery'' never appeared in the 
     Constitution. Slavery was supported constitutionally because 
     states had a right--``states' rights''--to provide legal 
     cover allowing private citizens to own other human beings. 
     That same states' rights system was at work in the 2000 
     election with respect to voting and it continues today.
       3. H.J. Res. 28 does not federalize voting any more than 
     the First Amendment federalizes free speech or freedom of 
     religion. The First Amendment's right to free speech and

[[Page H7226]]

     religion is an individual citizenship right applicable to 
     every American--not a ``federal'' right--protected by the 
     federal government and its courts. It's an individual right 
     that can be upheld in a federal court of law. Likewise, a 
     voting rights amendment would grant every American an 
     individual citizenship right to vote that, because it 
     would be a right for every American, would ultimately be 
     validated by Congress through legislation, and the Supreme 
     Court through interpretation.
       4. In essence, then, in the South Carolina debate, Senator 
     Graham chose ``states' rights'' over an ``individual right.''
       5. Attorney General John Ashcroft sent a letter to the 
     National Rifle Association asserting that every American has 
     an individual constitutional right to a gun. In it he wrote; 
     ``Let me state unequivocally my view that the text and the 
     original intent of the Second Amendment clearly protect the 
     right of individuals to keep and bear firearms.'' Some agree 
     and others disagree with that interpretation.
       However, there can be no debate or disagreement about the 
     right to vote. The Supreme Court made it absolutely clear in 
     Bush v. Gore--there is no individual citizenship right to 
     vote in the Constitution!
       If Americans had a choice between the right to a gun and 
     the right to vote, it would be nearly unanimous. Americans 
     would choose the right to vote! If that is the priority of 
     the American people, then we should have the wisdom and 
     political will to codify it in the form of a constitutional 
     amendment.
       What are the advantages of fighting for human rights and 
     constitutional amendments? Human rights and constitutional 
     amendments are non-partisan (they're neither Democratic nor 
     Republican), they're non-ideological (they're not liberal, 
     moderate, or conservative), they're non-programmatic (they 
     don't require a particular means, approach or program to 
     realize them), and they're non-special interest (they're for 
     all Americans). We can experiment to find the best means of 
     fulfilling such a constitutional right!
       August 6th was the 38th anniversary of the signing of the 
     1965 Voting Rights Act. But the Voting Rights Act is really 
     misnamed and, to some extent, misleading. It's not actually a 
     voting rights act. In fulfillment of the 15th Amendment to 
     the Constitution, added in 1870, the 1965 Voting Rights Act 
     was actually a non-discrimination in voting act.
       To fulfill the democratic ideal, an affirmative voting 
     rights constitutional amendment still lies in the future. 
     According to Harvard's constitutional law professor Alexander 
     Keyssar one-hundred-and-eight (108) of the one-hundred-and-
     nineteen (119) nations in the world that elect their 
     representatives to all levels of government in some 
     democratic fashion explicitly guarantee their citizens the 
     right to vote in their constitution. Both Afghanistan's 
     constitution and Iraq' interim legal document contains a 
     right to vote. The United States is one of the eleven nations 
     in the world that doesn't provide an explicit right to vote 
     in its Constitution.
       If we pass a new voting rights amendment, the next civil 
     rights movement will emerge fighting for congressional 
     legislation that can advance even further the central 
     democratic idea of universal voting--only partially enabled 
     through the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Motor Voter and the Help 
     America Vote Act. With a voting rights amendment, a new civil 
     rights movement would emerge to fight to fully implement the 
     amendment, while also using the federal courts to interpret 
     voting rights more fully.
       What can I do? If you would like to help me put this voting 
     rights amendment in the Constitution, call your 
     congressperson at 202-225-3121 (or call their local office) 
     and urge them to become a co-sponsor of H.J. Res. 28. If you 
     need more information about this legislation call my office 
     at 202-225-0773.

  Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Cummings), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cole). The Chair will reallocate control 
of the balance of the leadership time to the gentleman from Maryland 
(Mr. Cummings).
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Jackson) for all of his hard work. I thank the gentleman for constantly 
standing up for what is right, so often finding himself standing alone.
  But as I have often said with regard to the Congressional Black 
Caucus when the question is asked why is it that you stand up over and 
over again when it appears you cannot win this battle or that battle, 
what we do is we consistently stand up, not necessarily to win but to 
set the trend for justice and for righteousness.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon with my fellow members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus to highlight the importance of protecting 
the right to vote in our Nation. I have often said this is not a black, 
yellow, brown, reddish. It is not about race, it is not about culture. 
It is not about religion. This is a red, white and blue issue.
  When we talk about the right to vote and have your vote counted, it 
is clear when we look at our democracy that the very building blocks of 
the great thing that we call democracy and that so many other countries 
emulate or try to emulate is built on the individual's right to go to 
his or her polling place and pull a lever to select someone who will 
represent him or her in local or State or Federal Government, and that 
person will hopefully reflect that citizen's viewpoints when it comes 
to making policy. That is what it is all about. That is what our 
democracy is all about. That is why voting is so important.
  When we take away that right to the vote or when you deny a person 
after they have voted the right to have their vote counted, then we are 
literally taking away the building blocks of what we call this great 
democracy.
  Mr. Speaker, we are now 48 days from what will be one of the most 
decisive elections of our lifetime. I have said on many occasions that 
it is not only a decisive election, but that it is probably the most 
important election. This is that election where we will select the 
President who will decide who will be the next two or three new members 
of the Supreme Court, and who will decide exactly where we go with this 
Iraq war. This is the election which will probably decide the course of 
America's history for the next 50 years. Therefore, it is critical that 
within the next 48 days we educate people on registration deadlines, 
early voting, and the rights each American is entitled to when they go 
to the polls.
  As an African American elected official, I am particularly sensitive 
to the issue of voting rights because when the Declaration of 
Independence was penned, it did not have my independence in mind. It 
did not have my independence in mind, nor did it have my great 
grandfather's, my grandfather's, nor my mother or father.
  Mr. Speaker, our recent national history record records a time when 
the right to elect one's own representatives in Congress, in State 
houses and in the White House was a conditional right. It was dependent 
upon which State a person resided in, whether a person was born male or 
female, the color of one's skin or the ability to pass a literacy test. 
Indeed, our voting rights were limited by a vision of our national 
future that was clouded by prejudice and by dogged political ambition.
  Mr. Speaker, I am sure you can remember a time just over 40 years ago 
when the country was in the grips of a national revolution. Freedom 
fighters took to the streets in protest of an America that did not 
recognize that its strength was indeed in its diversity. The Voting 
Rights Act of 1965, one of the products of that revolution, did not 
come about because Congress had finally come to its senses. Instead it 
was the manifestation of a slave's dream deferred.
  As Dr. Walter Scott Thomas of the New Psalmist Baptist Church said 
this weekend at the Congressional Black Caucus prayer breakfast, when a 
people fail to dream, when they fail to dream of a better day, then 
they have indeed doomed their future.
  So the Voting Rights Act of 1965 grew out of the sweat, blood and 
tears shed by brave men and women marching hopefully across the Edmund 
Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, only to be met by police batons and 
tear gas on the other side. And it grew out of the work of so many 
other patriots whose names will never be recorded in our history books 
who may have never been recorded on the front pages of the Washington 
Post or the Boston Globe, but the fact of the matter is they made 
significant contributions.
  It is because of the Voting Rights Act which outlawed the racist 
policies which shut blacks out of the voting booths that the dean of 
the Congressional Black Caucus, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Conyers), was elected to serve in the United States Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, our Nation was founded upon the basic belief in a 
people's government elected by and for the people. Yet for so many 
years in our history, African Americans were denied the fundamental 
right to elect their representatives. In this very Chamber, African-
American members who were elected by voters in their district were 
denied seats in the people's House of Representatives and sent back 
home simply because of their race, simply because they were born black 
in America.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, before there ever was a Congressional Black 
Caucus,

[[Page H7227]]

five of the first 20 African Americans elected to serve in the House 
were not allowed to be seated in this Chamber which in essence 
invalidated the will and the intent of voters which elected them to 
office. As a Nation, we have been fortunate to overcome these and other 
trying times in our history. For the most part we have learned the 
important lessons of our past.
  Yet as evidenced by the contested 2000 presidential election, there 
are still remnants of that ugly past which seeks to remerge with a new 
name yet created the same result. We may not call it Jim Crow anymore, 
but voter suppression by any other name is voter suppression just the 
same.
  Mr. Speaker, some estimates suggest that there were between 4 and 6 
million Americans whose votes were thrown out in the last presidential 
election. According to a report submitted to the Committee on 
Government Reform on which I sit, the General Accounting Office stated 
that counties with higher percentages of minority residents tended to 
have higher percentages of uncounted Presidential votes.
  Some would have us believe it is mere coincidence that the African 
American votes were more unlikely to go uncounted and be invalidated in 
the 2000 election, but we in the Congressional Black Caucus know 
better. If Members remember, we came to the well of this very Chamber 
on January 6, 2001, to express our outrage at the systemic 
disenfranchisement of so many voters in our own communities.

                              {time}  1445

  Mr. Speaker, as it was clearly shown in Fahrenheit 9/11, it was the 
Congressional Black Caucus that stood up to protest the Florida vote so 
that we could merely speak for an hour and a half. But back then, 
January 2, 2001, we could not get one Senator to join in with us so 
that we could at least have a dialogue, because it was our position 
that whenever one American is denied their right to vote, whenever one 
American's vote is not counted, then that is one too many. And we were 
determined to make sure that history would not be recorded, when our 
great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren would read the 
history many, many years from now, we did not want it said that we did 
not stand up and at least protest what had happened in the great State 
of Florida. We each lined up one by one at this very podium, not 
because President Bush won or because Al Gore lost, but because the 
issue was bigger than any one individual. We came to the House floor 
because the fundamental right to vote had been tampered with solely for 
political gain and we were not going to stand for it. Unfortunately, in 
that effort, again now made famous by Michael Moore's documentary, 
Fahrenheit 9/11, we were silenced and our voices were not heard.
  Mr. Speaker, we come to the well of the House this afternoon to 
declare that this will not happen again, not on our watch. Recent news 
reports from the New York Times and other reputable papers across the 
country document an organized campaign taking hold of minority 
communities aimed at discouraging people from fulfilling their civic 
duty and voting this November. In my very district at the last 
election, notices were put out all across the City of Baltimore telling 
people that if they were behind in their rent or if they were behind in 
their gas and electric payments or if they had any kind of problems 
with the Motor Vehicle Administration, they would be subject to arrest 
if they were to go to the polls. But not only did the notice do that, 
it also told them that they should appear at the polls to vote the day 
after the election was to take place. Again, this was another effort on 
the part of some to stand in the way of people voting and having their 
votes counted.
  The Help America Vote Act, a wonderful act which was enacted by this 
great Congress, has provisions with regard to provisional voting. When 
we look back at the past election and look at what happened to a lot of 
those provisional votes, a lot of them, the vast majority in many 
States were thrown out for simple things, as if on one side of the room 
was precinct one and one side of the room was precinct two, if the 
person actually was supposed to vote in precinct one and mistakenly 
voted in precinct two, a provisional ballot, the ballot was thrown out.
  While we want to make sure that we protect the integrity of every 
ballot, I do believe that the founders of this great country when they 
crafted the Constitution of the United States wanted to make sure that 
every citizen had the right to vote.
  Let me just give you a few examples, Mr. Speaker. Recently the New 
York Times reported that police officers visited the homes of elderly 
African Americans in Orlando, Florida, flaunting their guns and 
questioning them about their voter registration activities. Just this 
week in an editorial, the Times quotes a State legislator in Michigan 
saying, and I quote, if we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're 
going to have a tough time in this election. The Houston Chronicle 
tells of students at a historically black college, Prairie View A&M 
University, being told that if they dared to vote in local elections 
using their college address, they would be prosecuted.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, there is no question in anyone's mind that these 
types of activities are geared toward intimidating voters, particularly 
minority voters, into staying home on November 2. After all, 81 percent 
of Detroit's population is African American. By suggesting suppression 
of the Detroit vote, the Michigan State legislator was publicly 
suggesting suppression of the black vote. The Supreme Court case which 
established the right of students to vote on campus was actually 
initiated by a case involving Prairie View University some 26 years 
ago. Here it is 26 years later and the same forces that sought to 
disenfranchise students in the seventies and eighties have been 
reincarnated in 2004.
  It was just recently that Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the AME Church 
said, and I quote, that while we may have new battles, and she was 
referring to African Americans today, we are basically fighting our 
fathers' and our grandfathers' same battles. We are only dealing with a 
different person but they are the same battles. Indeed, she was 
correct.
  Mr. Speaker, I am sure some people may be listening to this across 
the country and think that the Congressional Black Caucus is somehow 
paranoid. But I ask that they simply read the headlines in their local 
papers. Just 2 weeks ago, voters in Florida's primary were turned away 
from the polls because they did not have proper identification. The 
poll workers conveniently neglected to tell people that all they had to 
do was sign an affidavit attesting to their identity. A spokeswoman for 
the Florida Secretary of State is quoted as saying, ``The affidavit 
option in the law is merely a courtesy to the voter.'' I have news for 
the Florida Secretary of State and anyone else in the country who is 
thinking about threatening, miseducating or otherwise dissuading people 
from voting on November 2. The ability to vote is not a courtesy. It is 
the law. I along with my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus 
will defend that law by any means necessary.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time that our country get about the serious 
business of defending this democracy that we champion so proudly 
abroad. One first step would be to fully fund the Election Assistance 
Commission. As you know, the Election Assistance Commission was created 
as part of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to fix our country's 
broken electoral system. There are some that have argued that the 
system is not broken. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand 
that it is. All one has to do is do a replay of the 2000 election. But 
what you and people across this country probably do not know is the 
fact that the Election Assistance Commission was so severely 
underfunded that it could not even afford to pay the rent on its office 
space this year. That is simply incredible.
  Congress and this President has got to stop giving lip service to the 
idea of protecting the right to vote. We must act and we must act now. 
Unless the Election Assistance Commission gets an additional 
appropriation, they will be forced to pay their rent, salaries and, by 
the way, oversee an entire Federal election with only $2 million. Not 
even the greatest magician in the world could pull off that trick. The 
four election assistance commissioners and their staffs are working 
around the clock with State election officials to ensure a seamless 
election process in November. However, by refusing to provide adequate 
funding for their work,

[[Page H7228]]

Congress and the President is setting the commission up for failure.
  Mr. Speaker, as we have been throughout the last 2 years, the 
Congressional Black Caucus will travel to communities across this great 
Nation again this weekend to inform voters of their rights. We do not 
want people to get discouraged by the challenges that some seek to 
mount against them in November. Instead, we want to awaken a spirit of 
rebellion against these voter suppression tactics. We want mothers, 
fathers, teachers and community leaders to feel a sense of urgency this 
November. If there are forces working against us, we as a community 
must work harder against them. We must work together, Democrats and 
Republicans alike, to reinvigorate the civil rights battle cry that 
famously proclaimed one man, one vote.

  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank the distinguished gentleman for his 
kind introduction and I appreciate very much the leadership that he has 
shown on these issues. I join with him in standing with the 
Congressional Black Caucus on these very vital issues, but I believe it 
is enormously important that we pronounce not only to the Nation but 
even to the world that the question of the Constitution and the 
importance of one person, one vote in America has no color.
  I am reminded of the early signs before the civil rights movement and 
the opening of accommodations in America, we would see the signs 
colored here, colored restroom, colored drinking fountain, colored 
entrance. It seems as if whenever we begin to talk about civil rights, 
for some reason there are those who wish to put a color sign, one that 
establishes civil rights as belonging only to one community. The idea 
of voting in America should clearly be that of every single citizen. I 
hope that as America focuses attention on the November 2 election, 
listening to polls go up and down, splintering by the finest of point 
the remarks of each presidential candidate, I hope they will understand 
that the only analysis that ever counts will be their vote on November 
2, 2004.
  And so we are standing today, and I am standing today because I 
believe that we will need to have an ignited electorate, a voting 
public that is both incensed about the depredation of their votes or 
the depriving of the right to vote but as well an incensed electorate 
to be energized about protecting their right to vote.
  Might I just cite for those who are listening the numbers of issues 
that are so very important in our community around voter rights. After 
the 2000 election that saw a great disappointment across America, 
500,000 individuals voted in the majority for a candidate that did not 
ultimately become President of the United States. When I visited 
Florida, I did not speak only to Florida A&M students who were denied 
their right to vote or individuals who happened to be African-American 
males who were told that they were convicted felons and denied their 
right to vote but I spoke to senior citizens in West Palm Beach who 
happened to be white Floridians who indicated their frustration with 
the voting ballot and the inability to ask questions at the voting 
booth and their frustration with having been forced inappropriately 
because of the faulty ballot in voting for someone they did not desire 
to vote for. Or how about talking to the disabled persons that I met 
who were shedding tears because they could not access the particular 
polling place because it was closed off to them.
  Voting has no color. There is in fact no sign at the voting booth 
that should say colored here or white here. But yet in Florida in 2000 
and in Illinois and in other places, there were many, many people who 
were denied the right to vote. Of course the Voting Rights Act of 1965 
clearly enunciated principles that dealt with African Americans. It was 
a result of the civil rights movement, a movement of Dr. King and A. 
Phillip Randolph, Hosea Williams and Julian Bond and John Lewis and 
many others who fought and came together around the empowerment of 
voting for African Americans who had heretofore been denied, who could 
not even pay poll tax and get to vote. So many of us have parents who 
were intimidated away from the voting booth.
  So we came to 2001, and some of us took advantage on January 6, 2001, 
to be able to stand up and reject the tally in the State of Florida. 
But even that could not turn back what had happened in November of 2000 
and that is why we stand here today arguing for what we believe is the 
most crucial aspect of your empowerment, and that is the right to vote. 
We want every senior citizen to be able to vote. We want every student 
to be able to vote. We want every legal status citizen to have the 
right to vote. Every military personnel to have the right to vote. 
Every overseas American to have the right to vote and their vote to be 
counted.
  But, Mr. Speaker, in doing that, let me make it perfectly clear, I 
want their rights to be counted and their right to vote to be filled 
with legalities as opposed to illegalities.
  Let me raise for my colleagues some of the concerns we have as it 
relates to voter intimidation.

                              {time}  1500

  It has been noted by People for the American Way a number of a series 
of intimidation. We know how we were intimidated in years passed. I 
worked for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and I worked 
in registering individuals to vote in North Carolina and South 
Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama. It was interesting to go on 
those plantations where sharecroppers still lived and to see the voting 
place where they had to go. Some of my colleagues may be reminded of 
this. It was a tattered building with a tattered sheet covering where 
one would vote, and the overseer stood by while sharecroppers voted.
  That was intimidation. And, in fact, in places where I went, an 
overseer stood by with a rifle on his lap as those who wanted to vote 
tried to walk past him. That is intimidation. And we must come away 
from that, come through the life that Fannie Lou Hamer led on her 
plantation in Mississippi where she was intimidated for even trying to 
participate in the Mississippi Democratic Party and in the Democratic 
National Convention.
  So intimidation we know, and we stand today to argue against that. 
And some of that intimidation still continues: challenges and threats 
against individual voters at the polls by armed private guards; off-
duty law enforcement officers; local creditors; fake poll monitors and 
poll workers and monitors; signs posted at polling places warning of 
penalties for voter fraud and noncitizen voting or illegally urging 
support for a candidate; poll workers assisting voters in filling out 
their ballots and instructing them how to vote; criminal tampering with 
voter registration rolls and records; fliers and radio ads containing 
false information about where, when, and how to vote; voter eligibility 
and false threat of penalty; setting up roadblocks near polling areas 
to intimidate voters; internal memos from party officials in which the 
explicit goal of expressing African American voter turnout is outlined; 
in 1982 in the State of Texas, having individuals in all polls in the 
African American community, standing and intimidating voters, 
intimidating the precinct judges, asking them whether they were 
allowing voters to come in without their identification.
  This is voter intimidation, and this is what we have to cease and 
desist; and I would argue vigorously that, in doing so, we need to use 
existing laws of the land. We need to also make note that many of our 
cities, counties, and voting jurisdictions have utilized the electronic 
voting.
  And so I will be offering a resolution to offer to this House that we 
demand that wherever it is possible that individual jurisdiction be 
required, be encouraged, be asked to include a paper trail. In the 
Federal legislation that we passed in this Congress in the last 
session, we were not able to get into that legislation a system of 
paper balloting. And so we are finding out in a very frightening way 
that electronic voting systems can be tampered with. We in Harris 
County requested our county clerk to include a paper trail. That county 
clerk refused, and we are contemplating a lawsuit. And I would 
encourage jurisdictions around the country, it is not too late to go in 
and seek injunctive relief even to require their jurisdiction, some of 
them wealthy enough to be able to implement it at this time, to put in 
the paper trail necessary to protect the vote.

[[Page H7229]]

  Might I bring to the attention of my colleagues that, even though I 
started out by saying that I hope that we will ensure that the votes 
are taken and counted of all Americans, those overseas, those in the 
United States military, that none of their rights be denied, that no 
Secretary of State like the Secretary of State in the State of Florida 
in 2000 be able to close off the lights and close the door and the 
curtains on the various counties that were counting votes on that 
fateful Sunday when we heard from the Secretary of State of Florida who 
said, We will not take any more of the recounted votes; your time is 
up, and those votes will not be counted. We hope we will hear none of 
that anymore.
  But let me remind my colleagues that we still have to perform 
oversight. My understanding is that the Pentagon is asking that the 
votes of the United States military not be sent to the various election 
polling places or the places where they belong, but they are being 
asked to be sent to the Pentagon. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, whether 
the Pentagon has ever cited itself as a duly counted electoral system 
where they have the oversight and the checks and balances to be able to 
open the thousands upon thousands of ballots coming in from enlisted 
personnel, National Guard and Reservists, sergeants, and others that 
might be intimidated by having to send their ballots to the Pentagon.
  If the chairman would please stand just for a moment. And I see the 
distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) on the floor, 
and I know that he will be joining us, but I just want to be able to 
conclude on a final point. But with our great respect for the United 
States military, I know that we honor Shoshana Johnson and we have 
military now in respective communities, our respect for them on the 
front lines of Afghanistan and Iraq; but I would ask the chairman that 
we come together around a resolution, one, but also a letter inquiring 
about the process on behalf of our constituents who will be voting and 
sending their ballots, will they give us a precise process of how these 
ballots will be going to the Pentagon and ask for a reordering of that 
order such that those ballots can go somewhere else.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, one of the things 
that, as she was speaking, I could not help but think about is how in 
my district when we go to vote, the voter, and I am sure this is the 
case throughout the United States, is entitled to a certain level of 
privacy to cast their ballot. And certainly when the gentlewoman raised 
the question of what happens to ballots when perhaps they will be sent 
to the Pentagon, the privacy question comes up, the integrity of the 
system comes up. So I agree with the gentlewoman totally that we should 
write a letter. We will do that, and we will look into further action 
so that we can guarantee the integrity of those ballots coming from our 
military.
  They are citizens of the United States of America. They are entitled 
to the same rights as all others. So it just seems logical to me that 
on their behalf and certainly on behalf of all citizens of our country, 
we will want to ensure the integrity and perhaps have that order 
reversed so that they could go directly, as they would normally, to 
whatever the various precincts are in their local voting offices 
throughout the country. So we will take a look at that and write that 
letter

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue 
to yield, I thank the chairman very much for his response.
  Just in closing, it is interesting. This is the most powerful country 
in the world and the country that has the greatest technology. Would 
one not think that we would have the kind of precise technology, 
because these are absentee ballots, that could ZIP code these military 
personnel and send them back to their jurisdictions without tampering 
with and not going by way of the Pentagon? I think that would be 
certainly an appropriate manner of handling those particular ballots.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, one of the things that 
I think we have to keep in mind is a lot of people listen to this 
discussion and say it seems like these Members of Congress are not 
trusting the military. It is not about trusting. It is a thing of 
integrity of a system. One of the things that I think people want to 
know is that their ballot and the ballot of their sons and daughters 
and friends and neighbors are, in fact, being counted properly and 
being sent to the appropriate places so that we can maintain that 
integrity. And we do not even want the appearance of any kind of 
improper procedures.
  One thing is for sure. When we talk about a democracy, we also talk 
about people's confidence in that democracy. As I am sure the 
gentlewoman has seen and heard, there were some people who were so 
discouraged by the 2000 election, they began to question why they 
should vote. And, of course, we have a ready answer to that. But the 
fact is we want everybody to know that their vote will be properly 
counted and that they will have the opportunity to vote. So I think 
people need to take all of that into consideration because I think it 
is very important.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue 
to yield, I agree with the gentleman, and I think the idea of this 
Special Order is to put forward one term, and that is ``preparedness.'' 
We want not only the people of America to be prepared to vote, but we 
want the governmental entities and those of us who have responsibility 
and have respect for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the integrity of 
the voting process to be prepared.
  So my final words are these: One, I think that we should collaborate 
around this issue of dealing with the paper trail. I know that we will 
be studying the issue in Texas, and it may warrant litigation in terms 
of insisting that our particular county look into and pursue 
establishing a paper trail. My understanding is that constituents 
around the Nation are particularly frightened by the fact that their 
votes can be tampered with.
  The second thing is for every poll where someone else has a poll 
watcher, we need to make sure that we have one. I say to all of the 
voters who may be going to vote to be prepared with every documentation 
that they need and be aware of the fact that they have a right to 
attest their authority, they are called many different names, but an 
affidavit that they can do so. Be prepared that they can attest the 
fact that they have the right to vote.
  And, lastly, I would say do not leave a voting place. I am not asking 
people to get arrested en mass. But let me say this: Voting is 
important. If one feels civil disobedience warrants persisting in 
staying at the poll, they have the right to be able to get all the 
information that they need before they are taken away or shunned away 
from the poll. I say to them to wait on someone to come to them. There 
will be legal teams all over this country who will be assisting them, 
but to wait before being turned away so that they can get the right 
information or call back or come back.
  This will not be a repeat of 2000. And it will not be that because we 
are going to be prepared and we are going to utilize every aspect of 
the Constitution, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and local 
jurisdictional law, including the elections legislation that we passed, 
to make sure that every vote is counted. And I hope, as we move toward 
November, we will find ourselves prepared.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I was thinking as she 
talked about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in a way it is a kind of 
sad thing that we are even standing here talking about this, talking 
about guaranteeing the right to vote and to have a vote counted here in 
2004. But we do and we have to stand up. Every second January, come 
January, we put up our right hand and we swear to uphold the 
Constitution of the United States, and part of that Constitution is our 
right to vote.
  So I am very pleased that the gentleman from North Carolina has 
joined us. The next chairman of our Congressional Black Caucus, who is, 
without a doubt, one who has consistently looked at our Constitution 
very carefully, as the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) has. 
And whenever there was what might appear as a violation of that 
Constitution, they have consistently raised that on the floor of this 
great House. And I think history will go down and it will be written, 
and maybe hundreds of years from now somebody may just be flipping 
through some pages and hear about members of

[[Page H7230]]

the Congressional Black Caucus, particularly those in the Committee on 
the Judiciary, standing up for what they believe in.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CUMMINGS. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to add my appreciation. 
I appreciate the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) mentioning our 
service on the Committee on the Judiciary. Just to add that we spent 
some time in the Committee on the Judiciary this morning with, again, 
legislation that did eliminate opportunity to enter into the courthouse 
on questions of grievance regarding in this instance the Pledge of 
Allegiance.
  But I think the important point is that we stand here today talking 
about voter rights when we have legislative initiatives by this body, 
and I think our colleagues need to hear this, that are slamming the 
door shut. So for all we know, Mr. Speaker, we may talk about going 
into the courthouse on the Voting Rights Act or going into the 
courthouse on electronic voting, and before we know it, we may have 
legislation saying no one is allowed to pursue Federal court 
jurisdiction or appellate court jurisdiction on issues dealing with the 
Voting Rights Act of 1965. I just thought I would share that, as the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) was coming to the microphone, 
to let everyone know how serious we are today. I thank the gentleman 
for his leadership.
  I rise today to address an issue that I and members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus have worked tirelessly for, the issue of 
voters rights. The issue of voters rights is one that is central to our 
democratic government based on the Constitution and it is an issue that 
will be fundamental in this year's Presidential election.
  The importance of each American's vote can not be understated; it was 
former President Lyndon Johnson who said: ``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.'' Voters rights are guaranteed to every 
American, but clearly voters rights have been more dubious for minority 
voters, especially those in the African American community.
  The Fourteenth Amendment states that all persons born or naturalized 
in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are 
citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No 
State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges 
or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State 
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process 
of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal 
protection of the laws. The citizens of Florida were denied equal 
protection from faulty voting equipment, misinformed or unschooled 
Election Day poll workers and confusing ballots. They were denied equal 
protection from unreliable vote tabulation methods that were not able 
to discern voter intent. They were denied an opportunity, tested and 
approved by time to use manual hand counts to determine the intent of a 
voter to vote and for which, if any, candidate they desired to vote 
for.
  Disparate treatment of voters in our Nation is inherent in the arcane 
and disjointed method of local, State, and national elections. The 
condition of the Florida election was the fruit of this disparity in 
that the variations in the methods of voting lead to different methods 
of tallying votes and different success or failure rates in the 
accuracy of those tallies. The more modern pencil mark to fill an oval 
on a paper ballot that is fed into a computer to tally votes was found 
to only hold a 3 percent error rate while the punch card method of 
tallying votes had a 15 percent error rate.
  Congress passed the voting Rights Act of 1965 in response to 
widespread evidence of disenfranchisement of black citizens in several 
southern States, of which Florida is numbered. This act was designed to 
protect citizens' right to vote primarily by forbidding these States 
from using tests of any kind to determine eligibility to vote, by 
requiring these States to obtain Federal approval before enacting any 
election laws, and by assigning Federal officials to monitor the 
registration process in certain localities.
  It is clear that the injured party in the 2000 elections was the 
voters of Florida who had to suffer through the biased actions of a 
Secretary of State who acted as the Co-State Chair for the Bush for 
President effort in the State of Florida. The voters struggled to be 
heard in the face of repeated challenges and disruptions designed to 
end an order process of discerning voter intent when the machine failed 
in that determination. A constitution is the property of a nation, and 
not of those who exercise the government.
  The United States Declaration of Independence states, ``We hold these 
Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they 
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that 
among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--That to 
secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving 
their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any 
Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right 
of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new 
Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing 
its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect 
their Safety and Happiness.'' The Declaration of Independence continues 
with, ``. . . when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing 
invariably the same Objective, evinces a Design to reduce them under 
absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off 
such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.
  This passage of the Declaration of Independence adequately describes 
the plight of minority and poor Americans in their struggle for an 
equal voice in the governance of our Nation's democracy.
  African American voters were there on Election Day, but soon after 
the election was over we knew that something had happened to stop our 
vote from being counted with its full effect.
  In the 19th Century following the Civil War, the Congress passed 2 
amendments to the Constitution; the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments 
in order to guarantee the equal rights of African Americans and grant 
voting rights to black men. Following the enactment of these two 
amendments 22 African Americans served in the Congress and over 700 
served in Southern State legislatures, with some States being nominally 
under black control. Unfortunately by 1902 whites found enough ways to 
prevent the intent of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments from 
being followed that the number of African American elected officials 
dwindled to zero. It took over 70 years for the voting rights of 
African Americans to be restored to a level where the election of 
African Americans to Federal offices was to some degree assured from 
disruption due to the institutional blockade of African American 
citizens voting rights.

  The battle over at-large elections which effectively diluted black 
votes was not overcome until 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled in 
White v. Register that at-large elections schemes were 
unconstitutional, if such schemes diluted minority voting strength 
which they did in most cases. While we were victorious in that battle, 
the challenges to obtaining true voting rights have been evident till 
this day and we must fix what is a flawed and prejudicial system.
  The 2000 presidential election revealed a plethora of barriers to 
voting. In NAACP hearings on voting irregularities we heard testimony 
from law enforcement, poll workers, educators, civil rights 
organizations, state and federal legislators, and disenfranchised 
voters recounting the following:
  1. That citizens who were properly registered were denied the right 
to vote because election officials could not find their names on the 
precinct rolls;
  2. That registered voters were denied the right to vote because of 
minor discrepancies and clerical errors;
  3. That first-time voters who sent in voter registration forms prior 
to the state's deadline for registration were denied the right to vote 
because their registration forms were not processed;
  4. That African American voters were singled out for criminal 
background checks at some precincts and that one voter who had never 
been arrested was denied the right to vote after being told that he had 
a prior felony conviction;
  5. That African American voters were required to show photo 
identification while white voters at the same precincts were not 
subjected to the same requirement;
  6. That voters who requested absentee ballots did not receive them 
but were denied the right to vote when they went to the precinct in 
person on Election Day;

[[Page H7231]]

  7. That hundreds of absentee ballots of registered voters in various 
counties throughout the nation were improperly rejected by the 
Supervisor of Elections and not counted;
  8. That African American voters who requested assistance at the polls 
were denied assistance;
  9. That African American voters who requested the assistance of a 
volunteer to translate the ballot for limited proficient voters were 
denied such assistance.
  There allegations raise potential violations of Sections 2 and 5 of 
the Voter Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. sec. 1973, as well as several 
provisions of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, 42 U.S.C. 
sec. 1973gg-5(a) which affirms the right of every U.S. citizen to case 
a ballot and have that ballot be counted must be protected without 
compromise and without regard to the voter's race. This was truly a 
time in which justice delayed was justice denied. In addition to the 
number of allegations of voting irregularities that occurred in the 
State of Florida, it was revealed that a total of 180,000 ballots were 
not counted in Florida's presidential vote. The Gore Campaign, members 
of the Congressional Black Caucus, civil rights attorney's and the 
disenfranchised voters themselves sought for every Floridian's vote to 
be counted by requesting a hand count in the 4 counties that 
demonstrated voting irregularities. In these 4 counties in which the 
hand count was sought--all heavily Democratic areas--over 73,000 
ballots were not counted in the presidential tally.
  Beyond these egregious voting irregularities, millions of Americans 
were denied their fundamental right to vote simply because they were 
unable to vote due to prior work commitments. In fact, the great untold 
story in the last election and in most elections in America is the 
voting disparity that exists between those who can afford to take time 
off work to vote and those who cannot. Moreover, this perpetual 
disparity has caused a voting gap that threatens the very fabric of our 
representational democracy and has challenged our nation to find a 
solution that addresses this great disparity.
  In the words of ``Freedom,'' a poem by Langston Hughes we hear the 
threat to our national existence, ``freedom will not come today, this 
year nor ever, through compromise and fear. I have as much right as the 
other fellow has to stand on my two feet and own the land. I tire so of 
hearing people say, let things take their course. Tomorrow is another 
day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on 
tomorrow's bread. Freedom is a strong seed planted in the soil. I live 
here too. I want freedom just as you.''
  The question before us now is how do we make sure that this type of 
disenfranchisement never again rears its ugly head, especially in a 
year when we again face a Presidential election bound to be decided by 
a few thousand or even hundred votes. We know that in 2001 here in the 
State of Florida they passed a $32 million election reform package. The 
measure is supposed to eliminate punch card and hand-counted paper 
ballots and all mechanical-lever voting. Because of this reform, never 
again in the State of Florida will an election be decided based on 
hanging, dangling or pregnant chads. However, just because we may have 
eliminated antiquated voting systems in this State, it does not mean 
that voters can not be disenfranchised. More modern electronic voting 
systems have shown to have a multitude of questions surrounding them. 
First, is the question of fraud, these new electronic systems must be 
proven to be tamper proof from outside sources. More so, we must insure 
that the companies who supply these machines do not have any partisan 
stake in the election they are helping to determine. These questions 
were raised earlier this year about Diebold Inc, which will supply many 
of the electronic voting machines throughout the country and whose 
President has very close links to President Bush and the Republican 
Party. While I do not make accusations that have not been fully proven, 
my point is that even with newer and more advanced equipment there are 
questions and issues that need to be addressed. Many of these 
electronic voting machines do not even leave a paper trail record to 
review in case questions of fraud or tampering were ever raised in an 
election. As our society has grown more technological we have come to 
depend more and more on computers, but I think we all still recognize 
that while computers are free from bias, they are not completely free 
from error or misuse. Which is why I was truly disappointed to learn 
that the Governor of this State, Jeb Bush recently denied a request to 
conduct a statewide, independent audit of voting systems. This despite 
the fact that electronic voting computers crashed in May and November 
of 2003, erasing information from the September 2002 gubernatorial 
primaries and other elections. I am disappointed that officials in this 
State or any other State in this Nation for that matter would not take 
every step possible to ensure a proper election this year. The truth 
unfortunately, is that proper voting rights is not as much of an issue 
for some people whose rights have always been protected and recognized, 
as it is for people in our community who after more than two hundred 
years are still longing for true equality.

  While there is much reform to be done on the local, State and 
national level to make sure that every vote is counted, the real reform 
begins and ends with each of us. We must continue to go to the polls 
and we must be vigilant. In this year's election if we see a brother or 
sister being told that they are not registered even though they are or 
we see a fellow neighbor being harassed while others are allowed to 
vote freely; we must stand up for them. Together as a community there 
is no hurdle we can not overcome, we will not allow our rights to be 
frittered away. It is equality we have strived for since before we were 
even born and it is equality we will achieve because our struggle is 
righteous and our means are just.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Watt).
  Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. And 
were the subject of this Special Order not so immeasurably important, I 
could spend many minutes talking about the issue that the gentlewoman 
from Texas just identified that was dealt with in the Committee on the 
Judiciary.

                              {time}  1515

  But if she will be kind enough to allow me, I think I will wait until 
next week to make that debate. That bill will be on the floor, and 
hopefully, we will have ample opportunity to point that out.
  I am honored today to join my colleagues from the Congressional Black 
Caucus, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, the gentleman 
from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) and the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Jackson-Lee) to be a part of this Special Order which focuses on voter 
intimidation and efforts that are being made by some in our society to 
deter people who wish to exercise their democratic rights, the right to 
vote.
  I would be less than honest if I said I was delighted to be here 
debating this, because I concur with the chairman of our caucus that 
these many years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, we would 
like to be in a position not to have to be here to engage in these 
kinds of discussions on the floor of the House concerning voter 
intimidation, deterrence of voters from exercising their right to vote. 
And I would add to that that I do not think there would be any people 
who would be more delighted on November 3 of this year than the 
Congressional Black Caucus if we could stand up and say on November 3 
that we overreacted and did not need to be here today talking about 
this. But if that eventuality occurs, I am going to get up; I am coming 
to the floor to say, I am delighted to say that we overreacted, because 
I will be happy about it.
  I do not think we can talk about voter intimidation without putting 
it in a larger context, and that is the context of democracy. All 
around the world, the United States was recognized by country after 
country after country as the gold standard for democracy for years and 
years and years, and I wish I could say that the United States still 
holds that distinction. Unfortunately, we do not have that distinction 
anymore.
  While we were encouraging the government, the forming government, of 
South Africa to assure representation of all factions in their new 
government, we were at the same time in the United States Supreme Court 
discouraging minority representation in the United States. While we 
were encouraging the residents of South Africa to make their ballots 
understandable by putting pictures on the ballots if necessary to 
identify the candidates, we were at the same time making it impossible 
for folks to cast ballots that did not have hanging chads and other

[[Page H7232]]

problems in the United States. While we were encouraging the folks of 
South Africa to make it easier for people to vote by allowing voters to 
cast their votes on Saturdays and Sundays, in the United States, that 
is anathema to us. Although, it seems to me and other members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus that that would be the ideal to maximize 
voter participation. So we do not have the honor of holding the gold 
standard of democracy anymore.
  Those of us who believe that, somehow, Florida was the exception 
rather than the rule are deluding ourselves because not only in Florida 
were we having problems in 2000, but in every single State where votes 
were being cast, there were problems with the voting process. And 
unfortunately, those problems were disproportionately disqualifying 
minority voters from voting and poor people because they had the worst 
machines in every jurisdiction.
  So if one checks all around America, this is not a Florida problem 
that we are talking about. This is a national problem that deprives 
America from being able to hold out its chest and say, we are the gold 
standard for a democracy. If we ignore that larger context when we talk 
about voter intimidation and discouraging people from voting, then we 
miss a major point.
  Now, there is intimidation going on, and there is discouragement 
going on, and I want to make sure that America knows and that everybody 
knows that we are preparing to be ready for that kind of intimidation, 
discouragement, roadblocks by police, every kind of negative 
discouragement of our voters from voting on November 2. We are 
preparing to combat that.
  It is a shame that somebody could show up at our meeting today and 
hand out a flyer saying, we are recruiting 10,000 lawyers to be 
available on Election Day in the United States of America. Who could 
imagine that we would need 10,000 lawyers to assure that people in the 
United States, in our democracy, get to do what our Constitution says 
they are entitled to do. There is something wrong with that picture, 
and I just wanted to be here today to add my voice to the chairman's 
voice and to our caucus' voice that, on November 2, this simply will 
not be tolerated.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his 
statement.
  So it is, Mr. Speaker, that, again, the Congressional Black Caucus 
stands up for Americans' right to vote and to have their vote counted.

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