[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 87 (Thursday, June 29, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1347]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E1347]]
            DISCRIMINATE AGAINST LANGUAGE MINORITY CITIZENS?

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 29, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Stearns 
Amendment (#21). The amendment prohibits the Department expending any 
funds to fulfill Section 203--the Bilingual Election Assistance 
Provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
  As a representative of one of the many multiethnic districts in New 
York, I am fully conscious of the need to provide bilingual assistance 
to our language minorities and allow all our citizens the chance to 
participate in the democratic process. Thus far, bilingual election 
assistance has facilitated voting for over 200,000 Asian Americans 
nationwide, and caused a 50 percent increase in the Hispanic electorate 
in the first decade of the adoption of this provision.
  The right to vote is a fundamental characteristic of a healthy 
democracy. Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act gives opportunities to 
enable every American citizen to exercise their right to vote. 
Unfortunately, despite our laws, many minority voters face impediments 
to voting. The Stearns Amendment makes Section 203 ineffectual, 
removing oversight from states and localities who would be free to 
discriminate against tax-paying American citizens and impeding their 
right to vote. We can spend billions of dollars to spread democracy in 
Iraq but we are refusing funding to give our citizens the right to 
vote.
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) objects to the cost incurred 
to provide bilingual election assistance. The Oversight Hearing of the 
Voting Rights Act: Section 203--Bilingual Election Assistance, Part II, 
before the Subcommittee on Constitution, under the House Judiciary 
committee, revealed that 90 percent of the jurisdictions reported (in a 
national survey) that bilingual election assistance made up only an 
average of 3 percent of total election costs. Forty percent of the 
jurisdictions reported no extra cost for bilingual election assistance, 
rendering any cost-related objection to implementation of Section 203 
groundless.
  Eliminating Section 203 is the same as discriminating against our 
citizens based on their language capability. I urge my colleagues to 
oppose this attempt to disenfranchise American citizens. Let us not 
return to the era of the Jim Crow laws. As Mr. John Lewis said, ``The 
arguments of the opponents of Section 203 are suspiciously similar to 
the arguments once employed for literacy tests to disenfranchise 
African American voters.'' We cannot allow a repeat of such history.
  The VRA, considered by many as the most successful civil rights 
legislation in the country, has played a vital role in integrating all 
our citizens in the democratic process. Instead to proposing amendments 
that weaken this legislation, we must work together to immediately 
ensure the renewal of its expiring provisions. H.R. 9, Fannie Lou 
Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act 
Reauthorization and Amendment Act of 2006, has come out of the House 
Judiciary Committee with a favorable voting margin of 33-1, in a rare 
show of bipartisanship. Let us not delay the efforts to pass this bill 
that has had such an important and successful effect in safeguarding 
the right to vote for all our citizens.

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