[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14024]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   SUPPORT H.R. 9, VOTING RIGHTS ACT

  (Mr. SCOTT of Virginia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, there is no civil rights 
legislation more important or effective than the Voting Rights Act. The 
right to vote is the very foundation of our democracy, and as the 
Supreme Court noted in 1964, other rights, even the most basic, are 
illusory if the right to vote is undermined.
  The Voting Rights Act has made that right a reality. In Virginia, my 
home State, because of all sorts of schemes and barriers, there were no 
African American State legislators or Federal legislators, not a single 
African American State or Federal judge in 1964.
  After four decades of the Voting Rights Act which prohibited those 
schemes and removed those barriers, we now have 18 legislators and over 
40 judges serving in Virginia.
  We do not need to return to the days before 1965. We do need to 
extend the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act. We should 
support H.R. 9 without amendment.

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