[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 13 (Thursday, January 20, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H273-H278]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VOTING RIGHTS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kahele). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Allred) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
General Leave
Mr. ALLRED. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include
extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. ALLRED. Mr. Speaker, before I give my speech on voting rights, I
yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa).
Honoring the Life and Memory of Manuel T. Padilla
Mr. CORREA. Mr. Speaker, today we honor the life and memory of Manny
T. Padilla, a leader in our community and my very, very good friend.
[[Page H274]]
Manny served on many boards, commissions, and organizations in Orange
County, and he also served 9 years on the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
of Orange County's Board of Directors.
Among his many accomplishments, he was honored as Volunteer of the
Year by the University of Georgetown, as well as receiving the Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of the State of
California.
Manny's story started in New Mexico when he was 17. Then his high
school principal chose two of the best students in his high school to
be part of the Boys State program. Manny was one of those students.
He moved to Washington, D.C. later on and attended Georgetown
University while he worked for then-Senator Dennis Chavez. Years later
he attended law school where he met his wife, Betty, at the same time
while working at the Department of Labor. They had four children. And
Manny had a very long career in the private sector working for State
Farm Insurance.
As we celebrate his life, we know his memory will serve as a great
example to this next generation.
Mr. ALLRED. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Foster).
Brandon Road Project
Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share some great news about
our efforts to protect Lake Michigan and the rivers and lakes
throughout Illinois and the entire Great Lakes region from invasive
Asian carp.
Yesterday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that thanks to
the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, $225 million of
new funding is headed to Illinois for the Brandon Road Project. The
Brandon Road Lock and Dam on the Des Plaines River in Joliet, Illinois,
is the last best line of defense against the spread of this invasive
species into waterways not just in Illinois but to lakes and
tributaries throughout the entire Great Lakes basin.
The economic and environmental consequences of allowing this
infestation to spread would be massive, and that is why securing
Federal funding for the Brandon Road Project has been one of my most
important priorities for several years.
Last year, I joined my colleagues on the Great Lakes Task Force to
urge the Army Corps of Engineers to prioritize the Brandon Road
Project. And 3 years ago, I hosted members of the then-Republican-
controlled Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for a tour of
the Brandon Road site so that they could have a first-person look at
the importance of this project.
This injection of much-needed funding means that we can move forward
on getting this project done and protecting our waterways, and not just
our Great Lakes, but the beautiful lakes and rivers that define the
entire Great Lakes region for generations to come.
I just wish that more of my Republican colleagues had actually voted
for the bipartisan infrastructure bill to provide the funding for this
great project.
Infrastructure
Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Speaker, for decades, Americans have been asking
their elected leaders to fix crumbling roads and bridges and modernize
our Nation's transportation infrastructure. For decades, politicians of
both parties promised to deliver on an infrastructure package.
President Trump even promised that he would be the one person to get it
done. But he didn't, not even when Republicans controlled the House,
Senate, and Presidency.
{time} 1215
It was President Biden and this Democratic Congress that finally got
it done even though more than 90 percent of my Republican colleagues
voted against it. Thanks to this new law, people in my State will
benefit from robust Federal investment in the infrastructure that they
rely on every day: $11.2 billion for highway and bridge repairs; $1.7
billion to make sure that everyone has access to clean drinking water;
$4 billion to enhance public transportation; $616 million for
infrastructure enhancements at Illinois airports; and over $100 million
for broadband internet expansion.
Just last week, the Department of Transportation announced that $1.4
billion was already on its way to Illinois to repair bridges all across
the State. This is the largest investment in our State's bridges since
the construction of the Interstate Highway System, and it is just the
beginning of the infrastructure investments that will benefit the
people of Illinois every day.
I have to say, I look forward to meeting my Republican colleagues at
the ribbon cutting ceremonies for all of these projects that they voted
against.
Mr. ALLRED. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.
Mr. Speaker, I am here today to talk about the foundation of our
democracy: the right to vote and why we must protect it.
I want to begin just by telling a little bit about me. My story is
somewhat unique. I didn't take the traditional path to Congress. Before
I got here, I played in the NFL for 5 years as a linebacker for the
Tennessee Titans. After hurting my neck, I decided to pursue my other
dream, which was to become a voting rights attorney, a civil rights
attorney. While I was in law school, I decided to focus on voting
rights because of what I saw happening in my home State of Texas where
it was becoming harder to vote as the State was becoming more and more
diverse.
After I came back to Texas, I worked doing voter protection in 2014,
setting up poll watcher programs across the State of Texas, trying to
help voters deal with the new voter ID law that had just been put in
place and that I knew was going to deeply impact so many Texans. Then I
became a voting rights litigator suing States like Ohio and Wisconsin
for the laws that they passed making it harder for the people in their
States to vote.
Then I was lucky enough to rejoin the Obama administration and finish
out that administration.
I decided to come home and run for Congress in my hometown and my
home district where I was born and raised. In 2018, I ran against an
opponent who had been unopposed in 2016. I won, and I am now proud to
be representing the 32nd Congressional District in Congress.
In that campaign in 2018, I had the distinct honor of having
Congressman John Lewis come join me in Dallas. Mr. Lewis is my hero,
and to have him with me talking to voters and campaigning with me was,
to say the least, surreal. We went on to become colleagues, and I
considered him to be a friend and a mentor. I know that without John
Lewis, I would not be here today. There would be no Congressional Black
Caucus.
So many of us would not be here today were it not for him, the other
civil rights leaders, and the foot soldiers who fought for the right to
vote. That is why we named this critical piece of legislation after
him, the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.
Now, this piece of legislation is not coming out of thin air. It is
not a Federal takeover. Many of the reforms are intended to address
long-held problems with access to the ballot box for many Americans. It
is also meant to address the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the
Supreme Court in 2013, and the 440 voting restriction bills across 49
States that have been introduced in recent years.
Many of those bills to restrict the right to vote have become law in
States like my own, in Texas, in Georgia, and so many other States.
While other pieces address the direct and more recent threat to our
democracy, including the counting of votes and the safety and security
of election officials, this legislation is necessary for us to save our
democracy.
Yes, we have had setbacks in this fight. Yesterday was another one.
Not enough of our Republican colleagues in the Senate were brave enough
to stand up to President Trump's lies and to vote for the same Voting
Rights Act that the Senate had unanimously reauthorized in 2006 that my
constituent, a Republican, President George W. Bush, signed in 2006. We
were just shy of having enough Democrats in the Senate with enough
courage to change the rules so that we could protect our democracy.
But I am here to say today, to all of my constituents and to anyone
across the country who is worried about our democracy, that we can't
lose hope. We have had setbacks before, just as Mr. Lewis did, and we
have come back from
[[Page H275]]
them. The American people have sent us a clear message.
In 2020, 155 million Americans voted in a pandemic. They risked their
lives to vote. That is how important it was to them. Campaign finance
reform; ending partisan gerrymandering; and expanding access to the
ballot by creating national standards around voter registration, early
voting, and vote by mail are all necessary for us in our democracy, and
they are commonsense ideas that are contained in the Freedom to Vote
Act. They will fortify and protect this sacred right.
But let's talk about what is happening in the country because I hear
all the time from folks that voting is not difficult; that there has
not been a rash of voter suppression laws passed across the country;
that this is a Democratic story that is being told.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, between January 1 and
September 27 at least 19 States enacted 33 laws to make it harder for
Americans to vote.
Restrictive laws in four States: Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, and Texas,
imposed new or more stringent criminal penalties on election officials
or other individuals for helping their fellow citizens vote. These new
criminal laws would deter election officials and others who assist
voters from engaging in ordinary, lawful, and often essential tasks.
People in Georgia can now be charged with a crime for handing out water
and snacks to voters waiting in line to vote; lines that were created
intentionally by restricting other ways to vote.
Montana eliminated election day voter registration, making it harder
for new voters or folks who have moved to vote in that State.
Arizona temporarily restricted the powers of their secretary of State
to represent them in lawsuits. And the reason? Because that position is
held currently by a Democrat.
Other States have shortened the window to apply or the deadline to
deliver a mail-in ballot or have eliminated ballot drop boxes and
reduced polling places, and the list goes on and on and on.
Mr. Speaker, 155 million Americans voted in 2020, the highest turnout
since the 1900 election. The Trump administration itself called it the
most secure in American history. Yet, the lies about the election and
the attacks on the right to vote have just continued and continued, and
that is why I am standing here today.
Because of this new lie, these new laws have been passed, and we are
seeing voter suppression taking place in real time in my home State in
Texas.
Mr. Speaker, I want to just talk about my home State for a little bit
because I hear from a lot of Texans who wonder why voting rights
experts like myself say that it is one of the most difficult States in
the country to vote.
I want to walk you through just how difficult it is to cast your
ballot in my home State. First, the State of Texas makes it incredibly
difficult to register to vote. In order for me to register my neighbors
in Dallas County, I need to go to the Dallas County elections
department, take a short course, and become deputized as a volunteer
deputy registrar. That is just to register my neighbors. After that, I
am able to register voters only in Dallas County, and I am only able to
do that for 2 years because it is going to expire, and then I have to
go back and get it reauthorized.
After I registered that voter which I have done hundreds of times, I
have 5 days to deliver the completed form that I filled out with them,
or I face criminal penalties; 5 days. So if I lose it, something
happens, I will be held criminally liable. If I would like to register
voters in both of the counties in my congressional district, Collin
County and Dallas County, I would have to go to Collin County and get
deputized separately there. If I meet a voter who lives in the city of
Dallas but doesn't know what county they live in, because four counties
touch the city of Dallas, I would not be able to register them unless I
know that I am deputized in their county, whether it be Denton County,
Kaufman County, Collin County, Dallas County. I have to figure it out.
That is just to register my neighbors as a lawyer, as a voting rights
lawyer, for me to help my neighbor get registered.
If a voter would like to participate in the next election, they have
to register at least 30 days before that election day. So if, like many
young people, you decide that a week out from an election you are fired
up, you are ready to go, you want to vote in that election, guess what?
You can't. Because you didn't get registered in time.
Unlike many other States where they have same-day voter registration,
in Texas you have to have decided 30 days out from the election that
you were going to get registered and, hopefully, get through all of
those other hoops.
Right now, as we speak, the secretary of State's office is citing a
paper shortage as the reason why they can't print out enough voter
registration forms, despite dragging their feet for years in expanding
online voter registration for Texans. That is all just to get
registered, Mr. Speaker. We are not even talking about casting your
ballot yet.
So after you have gone through those hoops, after you have gotten
registered, you have to then survive the purges of the voter rolls that
are going on right now, such as in 2019, when Texas attempted to kick
100,000 Texans--incorrectly--off the voter rolls claiming that they
were noncitizens. It was such a disaster the secretary of State had to
resign.
Now, if you survived that, if you have gotten registered and you have
not been purged from the voter rolls to actually cast your ballot, you
have to jump through more hoops because Texas has the strictest voter
ID law in the country. In order for me to vote in the State of Texas, I
need to possess one of seven acceptable forms of ID which does include
a Texas handgun license but does not include a student ID like my
constituents at SMU, or UTD, or any school in Dallas might be issued.
A Texas district court found in 2014 that 600,000 registered Texans
or 4.5 percent of those registered at that time lacked one of these
qualifying IDs. Now, thanks to a court ruling, you can sign a
declaration stating that you don't possess that required form of ID.
But that is not often communicated at the polling place. I know because
I have trained poll watchers to try and watch for this. When voters
present themselves and they don't have the required ID, they are often
turned away.
If you have a disability or if you are out of town, or you just have
difficulty coming to a polling place, you can't vote by mail very
easily either. To vote by mail in the State of Texas you have to be 65
years or older, you have to be sick or disabled, or you have to be out
of the county where your election is being held on election day and
throughout the entire early voting period.
Recently, thanks to the State's voter suppression law, S.B. 1, this
has become even more difficult. As reports from counties from across
the State have shown, mail-in ballot applications are being rejected at
an alarming rate. That is because this new law requires that people
provide either a partial Social Security number or a driver's license
number on their application for a mail-in ballot, and that number has
to match the identification on their voter registration. This makes it
extremely difficult for voters to remember which ID they used when they
registered, perhaps decades ago.
In Dallas and Tarrant Counties right now, 40 percent, Mr. Speaker, of
the applications have been rejected. In Bexar County where San Antonio
is located, it is almost 50 percent. If these rejection rates hold,
tens of thousands of mail-in ballots and possibly more will be
rejected.
It is now a crime, Mr. Speaker, for county officials to encourage
folks to vote by mail, meaning that if you are in a household and you
are married and if a spouse requests a mail-in ballot, the county
official cannot inform you that your spouse can also request a mail-in
ballot if they are eligible or they face criminal penalties. And that
doesn't even scratch the surface of dealing with voters whose names
have changed because of marriage or divorce, or a change in gender
identity, or whose names no longer match the names on the voter roll.
If you possess one of these IDs and if you are aware of your rights,
you may still struggle to find a polling place. According to a report
from the Leadership Conference Education Fund, 750 polling places have
been closed in
[[Page H276]]
Texas since 2012. This has disproportionately happened in counties with
large Black and Latino populations.
The law also curbed other initiatives by counties to make voting
easier. That happened during the pandemic, including limiting ballot
drop boxes, banning counties from drive-through voting, and opening 24-
hour voting locations as they did in Harris County where Houston is.
They even tried to ban Sunday morning early voting to stop souls to the
polls until they had too much outrage and they had to back off.
Texans in minority communities disproportionately face long lines
when they get to the polling place in order to vote. This includes one
Black man in Houston who waited 6 hours to cast his ballot in 2020.
If you make it through all of those hurdles: register to vote, cast
your ballot by mail or in person via early voting or on election day,
your vote will then be diluted through aggressive partisan
gerrymandering at the State house, State senate, and congressional
level.
{time} 1230
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, Texas Democrats would
have to win 58 percent of the vote to be favored to carry more than 37
percent of the State's congressional seats. That is a State where Joe
Biden earned 46.5 percent of the vote.
According to this analysis, Texas would have to vote very heavily for
Democrats in order to barely break the gerrymandering, and it would
still likely leave Republicans with a 2-to-1 seat advantage.
This is all due to partisan gerrymandering, which allows politicians
to choose their voters instead of the other way around.
Gerrymandering doesn't just silence communities, though. It also
suppresses the vote. It is well known that competitive elections drive
higher turnout, which is why the recent State and congressional maps in
Texas sought to limit the number of competitive elections as much as
possible.
For the Texas voter that has found a way to register and cast their
ballot, and has ignored the impacts of gerrymandering, their vote is
still under attack, even after they have cast it.
Currently, right now, as we are 2 months out from the primary
election for our next election, our State's leaders are conducting a
so-called audit of the 2020 election results in our largest counties at
the request of the former President of the United States, trying to
prop up the lie that the last election was stolen from him--in a State
that he won.
All of these hurdles, combined with the potential discriminatory
penalties, are making it difficult for the average Texan to feel that
they can engage in an election freely. Even worse, States across the
country are following Texas' lead. That is why we need to pass the
Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.
The Freedom to Vote Act, just very quickly, for folks who are
wondering, because there is a lot of discussion about this, this is
what it actually does:
It establishes automatic, online, and same-day voter registration,
which would solve our voter registration problems in the State of
Texas.
It makes election day a Federal holiday, something that should
happen.
It sets national standards for early voting and vote by mail,
requiring 2 weeks of early voting, including 2 weekends, and allowing
any American who wants to, to vote by mail.
It bans partisan gerrymandering and establishes clear, neutral
standards and rules as well as increasing transparency and enhanced
judicial review. This would address Texas' extremely gerrymandered
maps.
It creates a uniform standard for what forms of ID are acceptable for
voting.
It prevents States from subverting their own elections and protects
election records, legislation that I introduced here in the House that
I am glad to see included in this final bill.
Of course, the Voting Rights Act needs to be restored. We need to
make sure that we have preclearance again. We need to have a national
standard. That is what the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act does.
This is a bill that passed the Senate 98 to nothing in 2006. It
passed the House overwhelmingly. It was signed into law by my
constituent, again, George W. Bush, a Republican. Now, not a single
Republican in the Senate or in the House will vote for it.
This brings me to my final thoughts. On January 6, I was just a few
rows back from where I am standing now. The doors to my right were
barricaded with furniture like this, which we use to hold paper, as a
mob tried to break in and prevent us from ratifying the results of an
American Presidential election.
I along with my colleagues like Mr. Jones, who is here with me, were
prepared for the worst. These doors were locked. We didn't know if
there would be a way out. But we were determined to do our job.
I think the most important thing that happened on January 6, the
thing I hope that people remember that happened, isn't that we had to
evacuate the House floor. I hope they remember that we came back.
We came back while there was still blood on the walls, while there
was still broken glass on the floor, while we ourselves were dealing
with our own emotional response to what had happened. While we
ourselves were shaken, we came back and we voted--yes, in a bipartisan
way--to affirm an American Presidential election. Our democracy held,
just barely.
Since then, we have seen a more clever, slower attempt to accomplish
the same thing that those rioters tried to do on January 6, which is to
subvert the will of the American people. We have seen it in State after
State.
We have seen the worst rash of voter suppression laws that we have
had in this country since the days of Jim Crow. In many ways, it is
worse because it is not 1965, Mr. Speaker. It is 2022, and we should
have made more progress by now. We shouldn't be having this
conversation about whether or not certain Americans should be able to
vote in our elections.
We have had this problem since the passage of the 15th Amendment, the
idea that certain votes matter more than others, or that votes of
certain people who live in certain places are inherently fraudulent, or
that they don't know enough to be involved in an election.
I tell you what, I believe in the American people. I believe that
they know that our democracy is what makes our country great. Our
democracy is what allows us to have this thriving economy.
People are trying everything they can to get into this country still.
They are not trying to join some of our autocratic opponents. They are
not trying to break into Russia or China. They want to come to the
United States. We are still a beacon of hope for the world.
When strongmen and autocrats worry about the United States, it is not
just our military they worry about. It is our ideas. It is the idea of
the United States. While that idea is under attack, I believe it is
going to stand strong.
I want to say, Mr. Speaker, to all of my constituents, to anyone who
may be listening to this, the fight to protect the right to vote is far
from over. The Senate may not have done its job yesterday, but I and my
colleagues will not give up that fight.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jones).
Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend and colleague,
Congressman Allred, for his leadership in the fight to protect the
fundamental right to vote and to save our ailing democracy. It has been
an honor working with him, with Congresswoman Terri Sewell, and with
Congressman John Sarbanes over the past year on the John R. Lewis
Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.
As you just heard, we are living through the worst assault on the
right to vote since the Jim Crow era. And yesterday, on the Senate
floor, white nationalists used the Jim Crow filibuster to block voting
rights legislation.
But they did not win the contest for the soul of our Nation. I rise
to affirm that we the people aren't giving up that easily. We never
give up.
We the people didn't give up when, after we finally ended the scourge
of slavery in this Nation, white nationalists fought back, violently
unraveling Reconstruction, throwing duly elected
[[Page H277]]
Black people out of office, and barring Black voters from the voting
booth for generations. We responded by organizing.
Progress came in fits. It took us nearly a century, but progress
came.
It came in the courtroom where Thurgood Marshall helped to end a
century of legalized segregation.
It came on the streets, where the March on Washington and the
Montgomery bus boycott produced meaningful social change.
Of course, it came in Congress where, after considerable pressure
from the civil rights movement, this Chamber and the Senate passed the
Voting Rights Act into law, and they overcame a filibuster to do it.
Imagine that.
Mr. Speaker, like you, I was hoping against all hope that today's
story would end the same way, with a majority of Senators doing the
right thing.
To those of you watching at home, to the millions of you who put it
all on the line to save our democracy, to see the Freedom to Vote: John
R. Lewis Act become law, I feel your pain right now. But I do not
despair. As Sherrilyn Ifill, the director-counsel of the NAACP's Legal
Defense Fund, said recently: No story in the history of our quest for
racial justice has ever ended with the words: ``And then they gave
up.''
Our story, the story of building a true, multiracial democracy in the
21st century, is no exception. The fact is, progress is not always
linear. It is messy. There are false starts. There are setbacks, like
what happened last night. But the weight of history and the force of
reason are on our side.
I grew up in the Baptist Church. To quote from the book of Jeremiah:
Like a fire shut up in my bones, I know that goodness will prevail.
As the elders used to say: Trouble don't last always. Weeping may
endureth for a night, but joy--joy--cometh in the morning.
Look at how far we have come already. Just a few years ago, democracy
reform was a pipe dream embraced by only the most committed activists.
But thanks to an overwhelming groundswell of energy, of movement
building, of organizing, the Freedom To Vote: John R. Lewis Act passed
the House, and it came just two votes short of passing the Senate.
We are not going anywhere. We are more energized than ever to see
this through. We must pick up Senate seats this fall to make the
filibuster an impossibility.
This is the fight of our lives, for our climate, for healthcare, our
jobs, our dignity under the law, our future. We have no choice but to
keep going.
I am reminded of the words of Dr. King in his 1966 speech in
Kingstree, South Carolina:
``Let us march on ballot boxes, for this is the way we are going to
straighten up . . . the Nation.
``Let us march on ballot boxes until somehow we will be able to
develop that day when men will have food and material necessities for
their bodies, freedom and dignity for their spirits, education and
culture for their minds.
``Let us march on ballot boxes so that men and women will no longer
walk the streets in search of jobs that do not exist.
``Let us march on ballot boxes until the empty stomachs . . . are
filled.
``Let us march on ballot boxes until the idle industries of
Appalachia are revitalized.
``Let us march on ballot boxes until `brotherhood' is more than a
meaningless word at the end of a prayer but the first order of business
on every legislative agenda.
``Let us march on ballot boxes.''
Dr. King's words are as true today as they were nearly 60 years ago.
But while our work must include the ballot box, we know that it also
must go beyond it. We must envision the world as we want it, and we
must do everything in our power to bring about that world.
Hold your elected officials accountable. Educate your friends, your
family, your neighbors. Change their hearts and minds.
Mr. Speaker, unlike John Lewis and his generation, we are not called
to risk our lives. We are merely called to exercise the rights that
they helped to win: our votes and our voices.
Like those before us, let us march on.
{time} 1245
Remembering Lani Guinier
Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, as we grieve the demise of democracy
legislation in the Senate last night, I rise in grief and in gratitude
to honor my beloved teacher, the legendary Lani Guinier, who passed
away earlier this month.
Lani Guinier's life defies summary. She began her career in the civil
rights division at the Department of Justice. She led voting rights
advocacy at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, often driving alone at night
through hostile places, like from Selma to Mobile, Alabama, to win 31
of the 32 cases she argued. Due to her intellect and her sterling
record of accomplishment, she was nominated to lead the Civil Rights
Division at the Department of Justice. She would go on to become the
first woman of color tenured at Harvard Law School.
But like many great civil rights leaders, Lani Guinier did not define
herself by the power she held or the acclaim she received. She defined
herself by the power she unleashed within her clients, her students,
and the American people. Lani Guinier found her voice by helping others
find theirs.
I am blessed that she helped me find my voice. So the day after the
Senate tried to silence the voices of the American people, it feels
fitting to honor her by speaking from the floor of the people's House.
I first met Professor Guinier when I was in college. I was taking a
writing course, and with her characteristic generosity, she agreed to
let me interview her. At the time, I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer
like my friend, Colin Allred. That warm evening, the Sun still glowing
in the sky, she illuminated a different path forward for me. She
revealed to me that civil rights advocacy was about so much more than
litigation, as important as that is. It was also about leveraging the
power of impacted communities to transform entire institutions. Without
meaning to, she helped persuade me to become a legislator.
When I arrived at law school, Professor Guinier taught me more than I
could ever have expected, not just everything I know about voting
rights law, but also how to become the person I hoped to be.
As the first woman of color to be tenured at Harvard Law School,
Professor Guinier showed us that being a first is not a privilege but a
responsibility--a lesson that is not lost on me as one of the first
openly gay Black Members of Congress.
Her scholarship sought to show that every voice belonged in our
constitutional conversation. Not just John Marshall, but Thurgood
Marshall. Not just lawyers like Constance Baker Motley, but activists
like Fannie Lou Hamer. Not just the people whose names make the history
books, but the seemingly ordinary people living lives of extraordinary
service.
While most law professors obsess over jurisprudence--what judges do,
say, and think--Professor Guinier opened our eyes to demosprudence, the
law that emerges from and enhances the power of the people. She knew
that justice is not the work of Justices alone.
At heart, Professor Guinier was a democratic idealist, a prophetic
voice who called us to reconstruct our democratic institutions and
reimagine our democratic identities. She cautioned us that winner-take-
all elections risk converting political competition into mutually
assured destruction, intensifying conflict and underrepresenting those
already underrepresented.
She helped Congress reinvigorate section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,
work the Supreme Court subverted last year in Brnovich v. DNC, and
which I was proud to help restore by introducing the Inclusive
Elections Act, which we passed in the House but, unfortunately, the
Senate rejected last night through the filibuster.
After the Court demolished the Voting Rights Act's foundation in
Shelby v. Holder in 2013, she urged Congress to not only repair the
damage--as we did in the House, but as was blocked last night by the
Jim Crow filibuster--but she also encouraged us to guarantee an
affirmative right to vote. I have been honored to answer that call by
introducing the Right to Vote Act, which also passed the House last
week as part of the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.
Beyond prescribing specific reforms and remedies, Professor Guinier
urged
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us to see that democracy was not a zero-sum war over the power to
dominate but, rather, a delicate project of sharing power with one
another as equals. ``Living in a democracy,'' she said, ``is not
something we inherit. It is not something we inhabit, and it is not
something that we consume. It is something we actively build
together.''
Just as the Senate refused to heed the will of the people last night,
the powerful did not always heed Professor Guinier. But she knew the
power of dissent. Whether dissenters speak from the bench, from the
lectern like this one, or from the streets, what seems like their
weakness is really their strength. The powerful coerce us to do their
bidding, but dissenters call us forward to freely do what is right.
I am heartbroken by Professor Guinier's passing. I miss her.
But Professor Guinier, even now, shows me that accepting myself as I
am can help me to center the people I serve. She inspires me to protect
and perfect our multiracial democracy. I once asked her how to advance
that mission in today's times. She said, ``I think that is the question
for your generation.'' With our democracy on the line, may we, the
people, lift every voice to answer.
Mr. ALLRED. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for his
words.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from
engaging in personalities against Members of the United States Senate.
____________________