[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 82 (Thursday, May 14, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H3510-H3511]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     OUR NATION IS AT A CROSSROADS

  (Ms. MEJIA asked and was given permission to address the House for 1

[[Page H3511]]

minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. MEJIA. Mr. Speaker, I rise because our Nation is at a crossroads. 
We face a familiar foe: the avarice of the powerful who rig our 
electoral systems in order to cement their power. This story is as old 
as our Nation. The powerful weaken the power of the many so that they 
cannot be held to account.
  After all, if entire communities are silenced, then the greed that 
results in cancer alleys, in mass unemployment, high infant mortality, 
or explosive unaffordability has neither check nor balance.
  While these actions begin along racial lines, the harm rarely limits 
itself to the same. While stripping Black Americans of hard-fought 
political power is weaponized racism that would make Strom Thurmond 
proud, the result is that every American is, in fact, losing their 
representative government.
  This is an act of war against democracy, and we should see it as 
such.

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