[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 59 (Wednesday, April 22, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H2364-H2365]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 REAUTHORIZATION OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE 
                                 REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the Speaker and acknowledge that 1965 is a 
very unique and special year. It is the commemoration of the march 
across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, which symbolized to 
the world the cry and passion to have your voices heard through the 
vote.
  I stand here today asking this body and its leadership to put on the 
floor of the House the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 
1965, a bill that was reauthorized in 2006, 2007, under the leadership 
of President George W. Bush and the Members of the United States 
Congress, in a bipartisan manner. The vote in the Senate was 98-0, and 
we had an equally impressive vote here in the United States House of 
Representatives.
  The question would be why, a simple task of updating this legislation 
to ensure that thousands, maybe millions, are not denied the right to 
vote.
  I start with that because the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge 
was particularly brutal, and I want to give credit to all those who 
marched, many names that I know, our own colleague John Lewis, Hosea 
Williams, and many that we have met over the years in Selma. They 
marched and stood nonviolently against violence and, might I say, under 
the auspices of the misinterpretation of the law, those law enforcement 
officers--misguided, of course--that stopped those individuals from 
expressing their rights.
  Today, I come to match the need for the reauthorization of the Voting 
Rights Act to the enormous need, in a bipartisan manner, to reform our 
criminal justice system.
  Over the news airwaves of the last 24 hours, right here in 
Washington, D.C., there was a statement about a young father who stood 
on his doorsteps in Fairfax, Virginia, that, finally, his two beautiful 
daughters had a settlement from that law enforcement department. He was 
shot on his doorsteps. The facts are such that I won't discuss today, 
but one can almost assume that that father did not need to lose his 
life.
  Yesterday, the #marchtojustice, the Justice League of New York City, 
came to the west lawn to petition the government to end racial 
profiling and to begin to address the question of how do we have a 
criminal justice system that meets the equality and justice of America.
  Sadly, just a few miles a way, in Baltimore, we understand that a 
young man was picked up and, ultimately, went into a coma and died. 
What happened in the midst of the time where his spinal cord was nearly 
severed in the custody of law enforcement officers?
  Let me be very clear. As a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, 
my commitment is that law enforcement officers go home to their 
families. In a few days, we will be honoring those who fell in the line 
of duty. We will be standing and respecting the fact that they provide 
a protection for this Nation and they serve us. We thank them for that.
  But we must come to a point where we hold the Constitution dear and 
that citizens of the United States have the right to access and speech 
and protest and that protesters are not dangerous outsiders.
  Mr. Speaker, I have introduced two initiatives that I would ask my 
colleagues to join me on, initiatives that should draw bipartisan 
support. One is the Build TRUST legislation that simply indicates that 
there should be a process by which local jurisdictions use various 
citations and nuisance citations and stopping people on the street as a 
source of revenue, the same kind of issue that confronted Eric Garner--
who, by the way, Mr. Speaker, was a large man who everybody knew, who 
was simply trying to support his family, maybe selling a few 
cigarettes.
  No one has suggested that, dealing with the laws of New York, that 
that wasn't against the law. What we are saying is that Eric Garner did 
not need

[[Page H2365]]

to, in essence, lose his life, nor did Walter Scott in South Carolina, 
shot five times in the back because he ran.
  We are legislators. We know the law. We understand that there is a 
framework for dealing with police officers, and we need to get there.
  The Build TRUST bill says, however, that you cannot heavily burden a 
particular community, and you must report where all your revenue is 
coming from in terms of, if it is overly excessive, then you will lose 
Federal funds because we know that you are going into certain 
communities.
  The other is the CADET Act, which I hope will draw bipartisan 
support. It does what South Carolina is doing. It codifies the 
collection of data of lethal force by law enforcement and citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time now to use the CADET bill for the science of 
criminal justice reform and the Build TRUST bill to rebuild trust and 
have police accountability.
  I believe that this 50th year of Selma, Mr. Speaker, pushes us to 
reauthorize the Voting Rights Act and move toward a just criminal 
justice reform.

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