[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 12 (Wednesday, January 19, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H223-H224]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PROTECT THE RIGHT TO VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Alabama (Ms. Sewell) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SEWELL. Madam Speaker, this great Nation was founded on a 
fundamental promise, a promise that, as

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Americans, we shall all have a say in the decisions that affect our 
lives.
  But as you know, this Nation has not always lived up to that promise. 
Indeed, the story of American democracy is a story of ordinary 
Americans daring to make extraordinary sacrifices in order for the 
promise to become a reality for all Americans, regardless of their 
race, gender, age, sexual orientation, or class.
  Madam Speaker, today is a day of great significance and great 
consequence. We, in the House, passed the John Robert Lewis Voting 
Rights Act, as well as the Freedom to Vote Act. Now, today, the Senate 
will take up and debate both bills and vote on the future of our 
democracy.
  What is at stake is clear. The current state of voting rights is very 
clear. Old battles have become new again, as State legislatures across 
this Nation have erected deliberate barriers to the ballot box in an 
all-out assault on the right to vote.
  Though we no longer have a poll tax, nor do we have to count how many 
jelly beans are in a jar, we do know that the modern-day restrictions 
are no less pernicious: Long lines, closed polling stations, purged 
voter rolls, bans on early voting, and the list goes on and on. In 
Georgia it is now a crime to hand out food and water to a voter in 
line. And so I ask you, What are we afraid of?
  Madam Speaker, the significance of this moment is not lost on me for, 
you see, representing Alabama's 7th Congressional District, voting 
rights are very personal. People in my district fought, marched, 
prayed, and, yes, some died for the equal right of all Americans to 
vote.
  I know that this body reveres our late, great Congressman John Lewis. 
It was John who said that the struggle for voting rights is not a 
struggle for one day or one year, it is a struggle for a lifetime.
  So we have to fight--every generation does--to protect the progress 
of the past and to advance it. And that is exactly what the John Robert 
Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act does.
  I ask our Senators; how will they be remembered? Years from now, when 
our children and grandchildren look back on this moment and ask, What 
did you do to fight for voting rights? How will you be remembered?
  Now, we are not asking our Senators to march. We are not asking them 
to sacrifice. We are not asking them to bleed on a bridge.

  We are asking them to do their jobs.
  To do their jobs.
  We are asking them to have the courage of their convictions, to use 
their position of great power to save our democracy in this critical 
moment.
  Madam Speaker, to my colleagues, voting rights advocates, and 
stakeholders, I say, no matter what the outcome is today, we cannot be 
deterred. John Lewis and those brave foot soldiers did not give up. 
Think of where our country would be if John and Hosea Williams and 
those that were bludgeoned on that bridge hadn't picked themselves up 2 
days later and marched again.
  Voting rights is a struggle of a lifetime, and we have to be in that 
fight. We cannot be tired. We can be frustrated. We can be downright 
mad. But we cannot give up. We have so many more miles to go before we 
declare victory. And victory we must have because our democracy depends 
on it.
  Our colleague,  Jim Clyburn, this past weekend invoked the Bible. He 
said, it is darkest before the dawn. Indeed, by not taking this moment 
to protect the right to vote, we are allowing extremists to strip away 
the power of the people.
  We all celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday on Monday. Dr. 
King said that `` . . . the arc of the moral universe is long, but it 
bends towards justice.'' But it only bends if we Americans decide to 
challenge it, decide to make sure that this Constitution lives up to 
its ideals. It is time for the Senate to do their part.
  In remembrance of the sacrifices of others, the Senate must reform 
its rules. We all have a role to play. And I say to the activists and 
to the Senators, the time to act is always now.
  King said it is always time to do what is right. We must get into 
some good trouble. We must keep our eyes on the prize, and the prize is 
our democracy and restoring the right to vote.

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