[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 91 (Thursday, July 13, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H5131]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   VOTING RIGHTS REAUTHORIZATION ACT

  (Mr. JEFFERSON asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Speaker, today this body will take up 
reauthorizing critical provisions of the historic Voting Rights Act for 
another 25 years.
  Every year new cases of voter intimidation are reported to the 
Department of Justice, and every year changes to voting laws threaten 
to curtail the power of minority voters. In my home State of Louisiana, 
the State legislature has faced objections to proposed election law 
changes every year since this historic bill was signed.
  Mr. Speaker, my own mother had to pass a literacy test to vote just a 
few years before the Voting Rights Act became law, so it has special 
personal meaning for me. Yet, since its passage, challenges to minority 
voting rights continue in my home State and across the South.
  It has been 41 years since President Johnson signed the original 
legislation that restored faith in our democracy and gave truth to 
President Lincoln's demand for a government of the people. After 
Hurricane Katrina, minorities in Louisiana face new obstacles in 
exercising our right to vote. The Voting Rights Act is just as relevant 
today as it was in 1965.
  The struggle is not over, and we must not stop now. I urge my 
colleagues to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act now and in the spirit 
in which it was intended.

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