[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.

                          ____________________