[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 101 (Tuesday, June 23, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E944-E945]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONGRATULATING HILLARY CLINTON, 2015 RECIPIENT OF THE BARBARA JORDAN 
                     GOLD MEDALLION FOR LEADERSHIP

                                  _____
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 23, 2015

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, on June 4, 2015, the Barbara Jordan-
Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs and the Thurgood Marshall School 
of Law, two of the great institutions of Texas Southern University, 
which is located in my congressional district and is one of the 
nation's great historically black colleges and universities, awarded 
the inaugural Barbara Jordan Gold Medallion for Public-Private 
Leadership.
  The Barbara Jordan Gold Medallion for Public-Private Leadership is 
presented annually to a woman of demonstrated excellence in the public 
or private sector whose achievements are an example and inspiration to 
people everywhere, but especially to women and girls.
  The Barbara Jordan Gold Medallion for Public-Private Leadership is 
presented annually to a woman of demonstrated excellence in the public 
or private sector whose achievements are an example and inspiration to 
people everywhere, but especially to women and girls.
  It was my honor to present the Barbara Jordan Gold Medallion to the 
Honorable Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady of Arkansas and the 
United States, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State.
  As I stated at the award ceremony, it was fitting that the inaugural 
recipient of this award is a person whose life and achievements embody 
the passion and principles and values and commitment to service of 
Barbara Jordan.
  When asked to name the woman living anywhere in the world whom they 
admire most, Americans have named Hillary Clinton in each of the last 
13 years and 17 of the last 18.
  As a leader on the national and international stage, Hillary Clinton 
represented our nation with distinction and grace, always reflecting 
our highest ideals and aspirations.
  It was First Lady Hillary Clinton who traveled to Beijing to speak 
truth to power, declaring on behalf of women and girls everywhere that: 
``human rights are women's rights. And women's rights are human 
rights.''
  It was Hillary Clinton who gave voice to what many of us have always 
understood, when she said that to raise a happy, healthy and hopeful 
child, ``it takes a family, it takes teachers, it takes clergy, it 
takes business people, it takes community leaders, it takes those who 
protect our health and safety, it takes all of us.''
  That, yes indeed, ``it takes a village to raise a child.''
  But before Hillary Clinton was a household name, many of us in Texas 
remembered her as a brilliant young activist whose passion for justice 
and equality brought her to Texas in 1972 to help poor people and 
African Americans and Latinos register to exercise the right to vote 
they had been denied so long.
  Passed in 1965 with the extraordinary leadership of President Lyndon 
Johnson, the greatest legislative genius of our lifetime, the Voting 
Rights Act of 1965 was bringing dramatic change in many states across 
the South.
  But in 1972, change was not coming fast enough or in many places in 
Texas.
  In fact, Texas, which had never elected a woman to Congress or an 
African American to the Texas State Senate, was not covered by Section 
5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the language minorities living in 
South Texas that Hillary Clinton came to help were not protected at 
all.
  But the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the voter registration work 
performed in 1972 by Hillary Clinton in Texas, along with hundreds of 
others, helped elect Barbara Jordan to Congress.
  In 2006, during the floor debate on the reauthorization of the Voting 
Rights Act, I said:

       The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is no ordinary piece of 
     legislation. For millions of Americans, and many of us in 
     Congress, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a sacred treasure, 
     earned by the sweat and toil and tears and blood of ordinary 
     Americans who showed the world it was possible to accomplish 
     extraordinary things.

  But a terrible blow was dealt to the Voting Rights Act on June 25, 
2013, when the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Shelby County 
v. Holder, 537 U.S. 193 (2013), which invalidated Section 4(b), the 
provision of the law determining which jurisdictions would be subject 
to Section 5 ``preclearance.''
  The reason the Court gave for its ruling was that ``times have 
changed.''
  Times have changed, but what the Court did not fully appreciate is 
that the positive changes it cited were due almost entirely to the 
existence and vigorous enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.
  And that is why the Voting Rights Act is still needed today.
  In the same way that the vaccine invented by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1953 
eradicated the crippling effects but did not eliminate the cause of 
polio, the Voting Rights Act succeeded in stymying the practices that 
resulted in the wholesale disenfranchisement of African Americans and 
language minorities but did not eliminate them entirely.

[[Page E945]]

  In Texas, we know this from personal experience.
  On the same day that Shelby County v. Holder was decided officials in 
Texas announced they would immediately implement its Photo ID law, and 
other election laws, policies, and practices that could never pass 
muster under the Section 5 preclearance regime.
  This stands in contrast to President Lyndon Johnson, who understood 
that the right to 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.

  Because Barbara Jordan understood the importance of protecting the 
right to vote, she authored the 1975 amendment that became Section 
Sections 4(f)(3) and 4(f)(4) of the Voting Rights Act, which extended 
to language minorities the protections of Section 4(a) and Section 5, 
which also had the effect of subjecting Texas to the pre-clearance 
provisions of Section 5.
  I am pleased that the inaugural recipient of the award given in 
Barbara Jordan's name also understands, as she made clear in her 
acceptance remarks in which she called for reforms to make it easier, 
not harder, for Americans to exercise the franchise, including 
automatic, universal registration of voters once they turn 18; and a 
national standard of not fewer than 20 days of early in-person voting 
in every state, including opportunities for weekend and evenings.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend Texas Southern University, and the Barbara 
Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs and Thurgood Marshall 
School of Law for honoring the memory of one of a great American by 
establishing the Barbara Jordan Gold Medallion and I congratulate the 
2015 recipient of this prestigious award, the Honorable Hillary 
Clinton.
  I look forward to congratulating future recipients of the Barbara 
Jordan Gold Medallion in the years to come.

                          ____________________