[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 12 (Wednesday, January 19, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H222-H223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ENDING FILIBUSTER TO PASS VOTING RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to 
stand here this morning with a very solemn heart, overwhelmed, one 
would say, with a sense of grief. And in that grief, there is joy.
  The grief, of course, is to feel the personal pain of the lack of 
unity around the very core of democracy, and that is the right to vote.
  As has been evidenced by Members over and over again, as I listened 
to Senators last night, everyone acceded to the point that voting is 
the core of democracy. It means that the individual in pain, in 
frustration, in affirmation, in the understanding of policies, gets to 
select a person of their choosing. It is not about those who are 
elected or candidates or the elections. It is about the voters having 
that right.

                              {time}  1015

  Right now, today, in the hands of the other body is the crux of 
democracy. I am, frankly, undone by the usage of an insignificant 
procedural rule that has been used over the decades and centuries to 
crush democracy.
  The filibuster is insignificant. It is an order. It is not a statute; 
it is not the Constitution; it is not the 15th Amendment or the 14th 
Amendment; it is not the 13th Amendment, which freed slaves. It is also 
the recognition that voting rights is for all persons irrespective of 
their race, color, creed, or religion, and their party affiliation.
  Why is the other body, under the leadership of Minority Leader 
McConnell, not coming to the table of unity? I extend an olive branch.
  The filibuster has been changed already over 161 times. Do we 
recognize that between 1866 and 1890 many landmark pieces of civil 
rights legislation

[[Page H223]]

that were essential to protecting the constitutional rights of 
Americans of color--this was during Reconstruction--they were, if you 
will, voted along party lines? But from 1917 to 1994, civil rights were 
crushed by the use of the filibuster.
  And so I rise today to ask for the better angels of the other body, 
two Members who happen to be Democratic Senators, and others who are in 
total lockstep in the other party.
  But listen to William E. Mason saying: ``But every schoolboy in the 
United States knows that the Senate is practically the only 
parliamentary body in the world where the majority cannot transact the 
public business, and where the minority instead of the majority 
transacts the business of the country.'' Senator William E. Mason, 
April 21, 1897, a Republican.
  I ask for mercy. As someone who worked for the Southern Christian 
Leadership Conference, who had the privilege of being here for the 
reauthorization in the mid-2000s, who wrote the Coretta Scott bill 
legislation that was added that said no mid-term redistricting, and as 
well helped rename the bill at that time to many icons of diversity.
  I want to conclude my remarks by referring to Martin Luther King's 
mountaintop speech, to read as much of it as I can. He speaks at the 
beginning by saying if he had sneezed when he was knifed by a demented 
woman in the 1950s, he says, I wouldn't have been around in 1962 when 
Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And 
whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going 
somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.
  If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been here in 1963 when the Black 
people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this Nation 
and brought into being the civil rights bill.
  If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in 
August, to try and tell America about a dream that I had had.
  If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Selma, Alabama, or Memphis.
  And then they were telling me, now, it doesn't matter, now. It really 
doesn't matter what happens. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got 
started the pilot said we had to stop for a moment because Dr. Martin 
Luther King is on the plane, we have to check and see if there were 
bombs.
  And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats or 
talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some 
of our sick brothers, who did not look like me?
  Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult 
days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now because I've been 
to the mountaintop.
  And I don't mind.
  Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its 
place. But I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's 
will. And He has allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked 
over, and I've seen the promised land.
  That is today, today, January 19, 2022.
  I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, 
as a people, will get to the promised land.
  And so I'm happy tonight.
  I'm not worried about anything.
  I'm not fearing any man.
  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
  Those who say they honor him, do not disgrace him. Vote for the 
Voting Rights Act.

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