[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 42 (Friday, March 8, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H2608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             VOTING RIGHTS

  (Ms. DEAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. DEAN. Mr. Speaker, last weekend Members of Congress traveled to 
Alabama for a civil rights pilgrimage. In Selma we marched across the 
Edmund Pettus Bridge alongside Congressman   John Lewis.
  Mr. Speaker, 54 years ago yesterday, Congressman Lewis was on that 
same bridge with hundreds of other brave Americans young and old. They 
were marching for the right to vote, and they were met with a wave of 
teargas and billy clubs. Representative Lewis was beaten unconscious.
  The trip for me was a powerful and terrible history lesson.
  Today States no longer use terror to prevent citizens from voting, 
but they do use other means. Since the Supreme Court's 2013 Shelby 
decision, nearly two dozen States have implemented restrictive voter ID 
laws, closed polling places, and used other means to suppress minority 
voting.
  H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, will erase these trends, 
and H.R. 1, which we passed today, strengthens democracy by ensuring 
clean, fair elections, prohibiting voter roll purges, and ending 
gerrymandering. Democracy means government by the people for the 
people. It lives up to the legacy of those marchers 54 years ago. 
Ultimately, it means making voting easier, not harder.

  Let's keep our eye on the prize.

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