[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 120 (Thursday, July 13, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H3492]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      AFFIRMATIVE ACTION DECISION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, this morning I rise to share with my 
colleagues both pain and a sense of remorse, sense of fear that many 
Americans will face, and attempt to have a dialogue and an 
understanding as will be reflected in the Congressional Record.
  I am a student of the Constitution. I have served as a senior member 
of the Judiciary Committee, former chair or ranking member of most of 
the subcommittees, covering everything from immigration to 
administrative law to criminal law.
  I love this Nation. I would argue with anyone on any assessment other 
than that I am a patriot, one who views the Bill of Rights as an anchor 
of our uniqueness, who appreciates every day the men and women who put 
on the United States uniform, and who has had the privilege--obviously 
to my dismay--to visit every war zone during my tenure, to acknowledge 
those in combat, to honor and respect them and, yes, to attend funerals 
of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and to acknowledge those of 
years past in our veterans cemetery in Houston, Texas.
  As I begin this discussion, I want it to be known that these are 
wonderful documents, the Declaration of Independence and the 
Constitution of the United States of America.
  If we look at the beginning of the Constitution, it is really poetry, 
but it is truth. As we are reminded of the Pledge of Allegiance, these 
words are equally potent: ``We the people of the United States, in 
order to form a more perfect Union . . . '' They remind us of the 
backdrop of these pioneers fleeing persecution themselves. Many 
listening today may be the progeny, the descendants of these people. `` 
. . . establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the 
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings 
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this 
Constitution for the United States of America.''
  Our Founding Fathers, who recognized that slavery was an abomination, 
and that all Americans deserve equal protection of the laws, in essence 
determined that the Bill of Rights was appropriate. All of us know the 
First Amendment, but I don't know how many know the functioning of the 
14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection of the laws and 
allows all of us to live in liberty and prosperity.
  I come here today to argue vigorously against the wrong-headed 
decision that was made by the United States Supreme Court on two issues 
and more to come. Citizens, law, and precedent, and the Constitution 
were completely ignored in the wrongheaded affirmative action decision.
  Let me be very clear. This is not about words; it is not about 
enforcing wrongness against my fellow Americans. It is an affirmation 
of affirming everyone. Whether your history is embedded in Pilgrims' 
pride, that your ancestors came here that way, or you are part of the 
Irish who came because of the famine and the lack of food in Ireland, 
or you came early in the 1900s as Italians or many, many other 
ethnicities, or maybe you are now Ukrainians who are fleeing the 
persecution of a horrible war and the lack of democracy, you are an 
American who desires freedom, democracy, and opportunity, as the laws 
of this land will allow you to enter.
  We are a potpourri. We are a place where people said this will not 
work, these people come from all places, but our ancestors realized in 
the Bill of Rights that slavery was wrong and abolished it in the 13th 
Amendment. However, every day we continue to fight slavery that still 
exists around the Nation.
  Then we put in place the 14th Amendment of equal protection of the 
law, and you could look at that and say, well, isn't it equal 
protection to let someone trump over someone else if they indicate that 
they have reasons to do so? No, it is not.
  Affirmative action has come about through the death of many people, 
and it wasn't the death of the Civil War, which was the dastardly war 
where brother was against brother which caused the greatest loss of 
life and one that we remember in pain, but we also remember the heroes.
  I say to you that the affirmative action decision did not affirm 
anyone. It took away that affirmation from the LGBTQ community. It will 
take it away from race, away from religion and ethnicity. Realize that 
equal protection of the law is a vital point. It is lost by the Supreme 
Court's decision on affirmative action.

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