[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 115 (Thursday, July 1, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H3594-H3597]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1230
                 HIGHLIGHTING IMPORTANCE OF GOVERNANCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Jackson Lee) for 30 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, thank you for your courtesies. And I 
begin with a clarion call. The Speaker wears many hats, and we have 
been in meetings where we have focused our legislative prowess, 
legislative questions, on voting rights. So, I think it is appropriate 
to begin today to say that a crisis is pending.
  I am stunned by this decision. I am aghast. I will not use the word 
``enraged'' because action requires a calm and contemplative mind.
  Today, the Supreme Court upheld voting restrictions. They might have 
written it and said they upheld voting laws. They upheld voting 
restrictions in Arizona and signaled that challenges in new State laws 
making it harder to vote--my God, I am going to say that on this 
floor--making it harder to vote in spite of the constitutional 
privilege that is ensconced in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments that 
generates into the States the dignity of humanity, that citizens' 
birthright is the right to be precise in your desires of your 
representation.
  And then, it signaled in this article that challenges to new State 
laws making it harder to vote would have a hostile reception from a 
majority of the Justices.
  The vote was just as we expected. All the Court-packing--all the 
Court-packing--has borne fruit.
  Forgive me. I wanted to be on this floor speaking eloquently, if you 
will, about a myriad of things, but a 6-3 vote, not even a light of 
difference: three who were not appointed by Republican Presidents, and 
then, of course, the packing by the former President of the United 
States.
  By the way, I just want to make a public statement. I know the First 
Amendment has its privileges. I ask the media to call the former 
President ``the former President.'' He is not the President of the 
United States. He is not ``President'' and his name. He is the former 
President. He is not ``President'' and his name at the border. He is 
the former President at the border, creating havoc.
  And havoc was created with this 6-3 vote. The decision was the 
Court's first consideration of how a crucial part of the Voting Rights 
Act of 1965 applies to voting restrictions that have a disproportionate 
impact on members of minority groups.
  It was issued as disputes over voting rights have taken center stage. 
We are still suffering from the Shelby case of 2013 that indicated that 
the Section 5 provision is unconstitutional and has left us with no 
tools to deal with this.
  As Republican-controlled State legislatures increasingly seek to 
impose restrictions, new voting rules, we are in the fight of our life.
  I am on the floor of the House today to indicate that there is no 
divide in any of us, thanking the Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman 
Beatty on the urgency of voting rights, and the Judiciary Committee and 
the chairman of that committee, the subcommittee chairmen of that 
committee, and all the Members and staff, we needed this decision to be 
able to craft the record that is going to withstand and fight the 
battle and be able to pass what the Supreme Court cannot undermine with 
its decision.
  In fact, we must thwart its decision. We must protect the vulnerable. 
We must not allow the disabled to be videotaped in Texas. We must not 
allow the hungry and thirsty to be denied water and food in Georgia. We 
must not allow judges to overturn willy-nilly the elections in Texas.
  We must not allow, if I might, the idea of a former officer of the 
United States--in fact, the Chief Officer of the United States. We must 
not allow that person to make a mockery of the order of government.
  There is but one President of the United States. That is President 
Joe Biden. There is but one Vice President, Vice President Kamala 
Harris. And they are effectively leading this government and this 
Nation. They are caring people.
  President Biden is, as we speak, either there or en route to the 
enormous tragedy in Surfside, Florida, to provide comfort but also to 
provide the strength of the Federal Government in any investigation 
that will proceed.
  That is the able work of the Florida delegation and this President. 
They will do their job, particularly those Members who represent that 
area, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and many other Members.
  But it is challenging to be thwarted in voting and to ignore the 
Constitution, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

  So, today, I want to proceed with what I think is a necessary agenda 
that is so important to this Nation. I will talk about so many 
different aspects of the issue of governance, why voting is so 
important, and why we need to close the social and racial divide, or 
racial and social equity should be intertwined.
  Let me emphasize, if you will, the enormous difference that what we 
are going to be working on over the next couple of weeks is going to 
make in lives, and that is, of course, the child tax credit.
  Votes and winning the majority in 2020 of the House and Senate by 
Democrats, and, of course, the new President and Vice President, led us 
to the expanded and improved child tax credit.
  It is a historical change that is a lifeline to the middle class and 
cuts child poverty. It provides children and their families with 
additional payments through the year that help them with

[[Page H3595]]

the cost of food, childcare, diapers, healthcare, clothing, and taxes.
  I will be in my town, Houston, Texas, on July 3--yes, the 
Independence Day weekend--to be able to open the eyes of my mothers and 
fathers caring for children, that this is their legitimate opportunity 
to receive monthly payments, $250 per month per child and $300 per 
month for every young child. All the families in my community can feel 
more secure and better able to deal with the burdensome expenses that 
face them weekly and monthly.
  Let me be very clear: This brings America together, this idea of the 
child tax credit. But, let me remind you, it was because of our votes 
that elected a Democratic majority, not a majority that does not 
include a desire to work in a bipartisan manner. We do desire that.
  I think this is the first opportunity that I have had since the 
historic passage--maybe the second--a moment that I can say to the 
Chamber and to this historic Congressional Record a large thank you for 
bipartisanship that has brought about, after 38 years, the historic 
Juneteenth holiday that was celebrated because it was signed on June 
17th, the first historic holiday on June 18th.
  Thank you to Opal Lee. Thank you to the initiator of the State 
holiday in Texas, Al Edwards. But more importantly, thank you to that 
teacher in the airport who stopped me and said: Thank you for 
Juneteenth. I can now teach the original sin of slavery to even 
elementary schoolchildren, not out of anger and hatefulness, but the 
whole story of America's original sin and what liberation, 
emancipation, and freedom represent.
  Thank you for the quote about President Joe Biden that said: He may 
be known for many things in his administration, but he will probably be 
remembered for signing the Juneteenth holiday.
  I am grateful to my colleagues for allowing me to lead, to have 
introduced that bill, the first Member of Congress to do so. I am 
grateful to Members of the other body--Senator Markey and Senator 
Cornyn--who rallied so that the Senate could move and that, in 1 day, 
we could pass it in the House, the bill that I introduced that the 
Senate then took.
  To the leadership here, how much we exalted this body when it was a 
415-person vote. I hope with that vote that there are those thinking 
that: Wow, I voted for that. I am not finished because we are not 
finished.
  If anything reinforces that our journey is not finished, it must be 
the idea that, today, the Supreme Court rendered a decision that 
completely turns upside down the writing of the John Lewis Voting 
Rights Advancement Act, led so ably by my colleague and friend 
Congresswoman Terri Sewell, a bill that will come through the House 
Judiciary Committee. We will be able to be the fixers, the doctors, 
those who will hold the Constitution and say: The Supreme Court, though 
the highest body in the land, in this instance, because of the Court-
packing, is wrong because the Founding Fathers did not intend for us to 
have a restraint on that unfettered right of voting.
  My friends, we would not be in the midst of the debate right now on 
the INVEST Act that is going to provide such a new difference in our 
lives. That is because of the vote.
  I thank the chairman of the Transportation Committee, Mr. DeFazio, 
because now that first step will be toward rebuilding the Nation's 
roads, bridges, transit, rail, and we will be fighting against climate 
change.
  Look at our Western region, where hundreds are impacted, thousands, 
millions, but then they have lost tens upon tens, maybe hundreds of 
people, maybe, but certainly numbers who died from the enormous heat.
  We actually passed that historic bill today. I am very proud that 
part of it, working out of Energy and Commerce and working with 
Chairman Pallone, we have provided real dollars to communities for 
wastewater infrastructure. You know that is important. We have done 
that through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. We have provided, I 
want you to understand, the historic funding level for drinking water, 
the State revolving fund, making improvements to prioritize replacing 
lead service lines that have plagued so many of our Midwestern States 
and Southern States, our public housing, improving water quality in 
schools.
  I know it well because my schools are old. Children before bottled 
water, with the historic water systems, were drinking out of those old 
water fountains and addressing needs in territories, reforming the 
broken standard-setting to make it work better as it relates to public 
health and to eliminate toxins.

                              {time}  1245

  The vote, the right to vote, is an extremely vital part, and as we 
have had the right to vote, and each Member has had the right, I am 
glad to publicly announce that I will have complete reformation of a 
historic street in my district, Scott Street--the right to vote--with 
the grant that was awarded through me to Houston and metro and the city 
of Houston, which we will be announcing soon.
  Those of you living in and around Scott Street, the University of 
Houston, Texas Southern University, there will be a new light, a new 
opportunity. And then we will be able to expand on the Greenways 
project, neighborhood greenways. I have heard you. I have heard the 
neighborhood. And so we will have that opportunity.
  And through voting, the Jackson Lee-Espaillat amendment, it is in 
now, it is law, and it is going to the Senate to be finally passed.
  And I am going to be an optimist that we were able to have an 
amendment in the Safe Streets program where funds are spent to give 
local governments more control over where the funds for the new Safe 
Streets program are spent by requiring the State Department of 
Transportation that ignores local government.
  They are ignoring local governments right now in my community on I-
45. They ignore them by expanding I-45 and taking out houses and 
schools and buying up historic neighborhoods. They are wrong. TXDOT, 
you are wrong. And we will continue to investigate until you realize 
that you are wrong.
  But I have an amendment now that says that local governments must be 
heard, and they must be consulted with on the amount of dollars to help 
them carry out Safe Streets projects, and that is to use a Safe Streets 
program to set aside safety funds to reduce fatality and serious 
injuries on public roads with a focus on vulnerable road users such as 
pedestrians, bicyclists, scooters, and motorcyclists.
  Why? People are dying.
  In my district, a woman stopped her car to help a handicapped person 
in a wheelchair get across the street, and another car hit her and the 
handicapped person and killed them without even stopping.
  Who needs to have the resources, but our local government?
  And then, of course, we have seen death take a toll on motorcycle 
riders. Bike Texas has been fighting for this. And we lost a young man 
a few years ago as he was riding his bike in the Heights area. He lost 
his life. I promised his family.
  The lady who lost her life pushing the wheelchair was Lesha Adams, 
54, and she was helping Jesus ``Jesse'' Perez to cross. Ms. Adams 
pulled over and got out, and as I said, another vehicle struck them. 
And they were both killed.
  And on March 7, 2019, right before the pandemic, I went to the spot 
where David Leon Loya was killed in a collision with a school bus while 
riding his bicycle. That was the way he got around in the Heights.
  This is in their name, to make local governments take charge of those 
dollars and to help stop that kind of violence, which it is.
  And then the motorcycle riders, they have motorcycle clubs, and they 
are ignored. And in the name of Jamal Harris that was killed around 
Mother's Day or in May, this amendment was put forward.
  In the freeze we have suffered. People died. And so I have an 
amendment that was passed and will now become law that requires the EPA 
administrator to initiate a study on the distribution of wastewater 
infrastructure funds to rural communities, economically disadvantaged 
communities, and Tribal communities during the 20 fiscal years 
preceding.
  And the reason is, there has been the understanding that wastewater 
resources in inner city infrastructure and

[[Page H3596]]

rural areas is poor, not working, and you feel the impact. I am 
grateful. But again, I am going to say voting.
  And then, of course, we know the freeze. So many died in early 
February.
  The President came to acknowledge something that we had never 
experienced. Our whole grid shut down, which is why we need the 
American Jobs Plan in its totality. I stand with my friends in the 
Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Budget Committee, and the 
Congressional Black Caucus, and all of the Democratic Caucus that we 
must go big. We must work with this bipartisan legislation, but we must 
get climate change. We must get the care economy. And we must deal with 
the broadband and cyber.
  But the electric grids have been failing. And so my particular 
amendment implements a program under which the administrator may award 
grants to community water systems to carry out activities to educate 
and assist persons by the community water system in adapting and 
responding to bad acts and natural disasters, including sub-zero 
temperatures.
  What does that mean? It means that our pipes froze. People were still 
suffering from freezing, and those pipes burst and destroyed homes. Not 
only did people die, they frozen to death because they had no 
electricity, and they had no water.
  And I remember standing and giving out water to thousands, being part 
of giving out water to thousands all over our community. We were giving 
out water in 2021. They had no water. Not only did they have no water, 
but it took a very long time.
  I will include a study to show you why wastewater is so important. 
The groundbreaking 2019 study and report is ``Flushed and Forgotten: 
Sanitation and Wastewater in Rural Communities in the US.'' And it was 
conducted by the Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise and the Columbia 
University Institute for the Study of Human Rights. It indicated, 
sanitation is essential to everyday functions such as urination and 
defecation. Without a system in place to dispose of wastewater, 
individuals experience environmental contamination. The perpetual 
appearance of wastewater in and around homes that occurs when systems 
are absent or failing takes a significant toll on mental health and the 
ability of individuals to live in dignity.
  Do you realize that that is occurring in America? That is why I am 
here today.

  And I am here today because no one is going to tell me with 
conditions like this that we don't need the American Jobs Plan and that 
we don't need the dollars that will stop flooding in Houston, which we 
have built up enormously.
  No one is going to tell me that we don't need the child tax credit 
for each and every one of you. That is why we will be in Houston on 
July 3. We will be in Houston July 3 because these children need these 
resources.
  Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining, 
please?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 7 minutes remaining.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment to physically 
hold this poster up and to emphasize how important our children are 
before I raise another very vital point.
  One, it was because of votes that we got the Children's Health 
Insurance Program. And it will be because of votes that we got the 
pandemic child tax credit that you will get $250 for older children and 
$300 for younger children every single month.
  Meet me at the Saint John's Church at 10 a.m. on July 3 to ensure 
that you get the right information. This is not a sales job. This is 
what voting and representation is all about.
  I will conclude my remarks with something that has been, Mr. Speaker, 
very important, and I hope that its explanation is one that is taken 
not historically in the way that it should, and we ought not ignore the 
attack on democracy and to acknowledge the leadership of this House for 
the January 6 committee. I have worked on the select committee. I am a 
Member who was here for 9/11. And when I say ``here,'' I was literally 
in this Capitol and among others that fled out of this Capitol and 
watched the billowing smoke that was a result of the hit at the 
Pentagon as we were escaping. And so I take very seriously the issues 
of January 6.
  I will also briefly acknowledge the work that we have done with 
ensuring that Confederate statues were removed and put in a place of 
history but not a place that is a citadel of democracy when there were 
those that stood up against that democracy.
  I acknowledge the validity of the George Floyd Justice in Policing 
Act and pay tribute to his family who has sacrificed so much to try to 
make things right.
  But now I will proceed with what I think must be our next step with 
voting, and that is H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop 
Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. I want to take away any 
glare or misunderstanding that this is a figment of our imagination, 
this is something that we should do in passing, it is an impossibility, 
it is a third rail, if we do this, something will happen.
  I welcome, and I am here, present, to speak to all of my colleagues, 
Democrats and Republicans, but I want you to look at the back of this 
slave. The silence is deadening as to what occurred for almost a 
quarter of a thousand years; in bondage over 200 years.
  We have difficulty in detailing the actual facts of the precise 
brutality in every plantation and every nuance and every northern State 
and every southern State and every western State and every eastern 
State because it was prevalent everywhere. There were different times 
when it ended. Certainly, December 1965 was when the 13th Amendment was 
so eloquently debated with difficulty, and it was passed.
  But H.R. 40 is the distinct opportunity internationally for America's 
presence to be known that we are back, that we are willing to 
acknowledge the original sin. We are not here accounting for my 
neighbor, who will tell me that he or she did not have slaves. That is 
not the accounting that we are, in essence, looking at. We are not 
looking to be able to see whether or not my other neighbor just left 
slavery.
  Slavery is a part of America's history. The DNA and the progeny of 
slavery are here in America. You cannot ignore them. They are the 
foundation of this Nation.
  They built the place I now stand. Slaves.
  They built the White House. Slaves.
  They built infrastructure.
  They created cotton and made it king, never to be given any 
compensation for years of work. No health insurance. No insurance. No 
workmen's comp. No salary.
  But as the U.N. Human Rights Council has said, reparations should not 
only be equated with financial compensation, it should include 
restitution, rehabilitation, acknowledgment of injustice, apologies, 
memorialization, education, reform, and guarantees that such injustices 
won't happen again.

                              {time}  1300

  The legislation itself is a nonthreatening and serious legislation. 
It is a reflection of what General Sherman tried to do. He tried to 
remedy the back that we see here today. He tried to give 40 acres and a 
mule.
  Can you imagine the conglomerate that would have occurred if 5, 6, 
10, 20 slaves had come together with that?
  And believe me, slaves did not ask in anger. In fact, as they did not 
get it, they made their way. But as they made their way, we can cite 19 
sites, almost, in America where what slaves built were destroyed.
  Greenwood, 100 years, is an example. Greenwood is an example of a cry 
for reparations. Mother Fletcher and Mother Randall. And our sergeant, 
her brother, articulate that they never got anything and all that they 
had in Greenwood was taken from them. What an unbelievable scenario 
that we are facing.
  Mr. Speaker, so my plea today is that as you've listened to me, I 
leave here to go fight for voting rights. But I also leave here with a 
challenge and an encouragement for the understanding of all that I have 
said. But, more importantly, as I close, H.R. 40, the Commission to 
Study and Develop Reparations Proposals, I look forward to working with 
our leadership and all others to ensure that we do make this an 
important step forward.
  Mr. Speaker, thank you for recognizing me for this Special Order 
during which I will discuss the removal of statues glorifying 
Confederate traitors from places of honor in the Capitol, the removal 
of the bust from the Old Supreme Court Chamber and replacing it with a

[[Page H3597]]

bust civil rights icon and legend, the late Associate Justice of the 
Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall.
  At the outset, Mr. Speaker, let me make this brief comment.
  Many of friends across the aisle, including Republican Leader 
McCarthy, have noted the fact that all of the persons affected by H. 
Res. 503 were Democrats and none were Republicans.
  This is hardly revelatory.
  After all, the Republican Party was founded in the 1850s because of 
its opposition to slavery that Southern Democrats like future Vice 
President of the Confederate States of America Alexander Stephens 
boasted was the ``cornerstone of America.''
  In 1861, after the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, the 
eleven slave-holding states seceded from the Union, not to preserve 
their heritage, but to keep their slaves.
  That led to the Civil War, in which more than 600,000 persons on both 
sides gave their lives and ended in the utter defeat and unconditional 
surrender of the Confederate Army led by its traitor general Robert E. 
Lee.
  Also, as a consequence of the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th 
Amendments to the Constitution were passed and ratified.
  Mr. Speaker, I am grateful that at the time when it was needed most, 
the Republican Party was born and committed to the extinction of 
slavery.
  It was the pro-freedom, pro-civil rights party.
  The Democratic Party in those nightmarish days was centered in the 
``Solid South,'' and proudly wore the label of the pro-slavery, white 
supremacy party.
  This was not lost on the American people, and for a century Black 
Americans overwhelmingly self-identified with the pro-civil rights, 
anti-white supremacy Republican Party.
  Even after the national Democratic Party renounced de jure racism and 
``states rights'' at the 1948 DNC in Philadelphia, resulting in Strom 
Thurmond leading his fellow Dixiecrats out of the convention and 
running a failed bid for the presidency, Black Americans remained a 
core constituency of the Republican Party, while nearly all whites in 
the southern states were Democrats, distinguishing themselves from 
northern liberals by calling themselves ``Southern Democrats'' or 
``constitutional Democrats''.

  All of this changed in 1964.
  That was the year the Republican Party nominated for president Sen. 
Barry Goldwater, an active and die-hard opponent of the Civil Rights 
Act of 1964.
  Southern Democrats saw in Goldwater's support for `states rights' a 
kindred spirit and vehicle to halt the federal government's commitment 
to extend the writ and guarantees of the Constitution to all persons in 
all regions of the country.
  Mr. Speaker, the result of that realigning election remains with us 
to this day.
  Before the Great Depression and the election of Franklin Roosevelt, 
the overwhelming majority of votes cast by Black Americans were for 
Republican candidates.
  Even in the election of 1960, the parties closely competed for the 
votes of Black Americans, with Republican Richard Nixon winning more 
than 35 percent.
  Fast forward to 1964.
  Republican Barry Goldwater was routed 486-52 in an electoral college 
landslide and lost 43 states; Lyndon Johnson won the popular vote by 16 
million votes (61-38 percent).
  Goldwater won only his native state of Arizona and five Deep South I 
states--Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina.
  It is interesting to note that the five Southern states that voted 
for Goldwater swung over dramatically to support him; for example, in 
Mississippi, where Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt had won 97 percent of 
the popular vote in 1936, Goldwater won 87 percent of the vote.
  Lyndon Johnson would say the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would cost 
Democrats the South for 50 years but it was worth it.
  What accounted for this change in voting allegiance, which persists 
to this day?
  The answer is simple and obvious, beginning in 1964 the Democratic 
Party became, and was perceived by Americans, as the party of civil 
rights; the Republican Party not so much.
  So, Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that yes, the Confederate 
traitors whose statues are being removed from the Capitol were then 
members of the southern Democratic Party.
  The difference is that white supremacists have not been welcome or 
embraced by the national Democratic Party since 1948 and have been 
pariahs since 1964.
  We Democrats are not reluctant to remove and banish those who bring 
shame and dishonor to our cause of advancing equal justice for all 
Americans.
  I challenge our friends across the aisle to stop glorifying as 
`heritage' a history of terror, injustice, violence, and racism 
represented by the persons whose statues are being removed and anyone 
who proudly waves a Confederate flag, like the one that disgraced the 
Capitol when it was paraded by domestic terrorists during the January 6 
insurrection and attack on American democracy.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________