[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14091-14098]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1900
              SHORTEN REAUTHORIZATION OF VOTING RIGHTS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Miss McMorris). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to have the 
opportunity to address you this evening and take up a number of issues 
that I believe are important to the American people.
  As I come in here and listen to the tail end of the dialogue that 
takes place here on the floor, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Delahunt), my friend whom I serve with on the Committee on the 
Judiciary, for acknowledging that some of us will stand up and speak to 
the lack of enforcement on the part of this administration.
  In fact, in our private conversation, I reiterated something that I 
put into the Record the night before last in that if you are an 
employer in the United States and you are knowingly and willfully 
hiring illegals, you were 19 times more likely to be sanctioned under 
Bill Clinton's administration than you are under the current 
administration. That is the level that this enforcement has drifted to. 
That is the issue that they speak to.
  However, I would say on the other side of this argument, we have seen 
an acceleration of enforcement on the border. It is too little too late 
to satisfy me and many of my colleagues here in Congress. But the point 
missing from this dialogue is when amendments are offered on the floor; 
if they are serious about passing those amendments, it takes homework 
to get that done. You have to reach across to the other side of the 
aisle and identify some people to work with on the other side of the 
aisle

[[Page 14092]]

and get those sponsors and cosponsors for those amendments so when it 
comes to the floor it is ready for passage.
  A late-arriving amendment that is not designed to pass, but makes a 
statement has very little opportunity to actually make it into law, and 
some of those amendments are viewed that way by myself and many others. 
So I am looking forward to a bipartisan effort on this enforcement. It 
is one of the reasons that I have talked so long and relentlessly on 
many things that we need to do.
  But I came tonight to talk about another issue, and that is an 
important issue that is in front of us tomorrow. Tomorrow the House of 
Representatives will be taking up the legislation that is proposed to 
reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.
  Now, the Voting Rights Act was first written into law in 1965. It was 
an essential piece of legislation in 1965. We were in the middle of the 
civil rights demonstrations that were taking place. Those of us who 
lived through that time, and I can say during that period of time it 
was a very impressionable point in my life. If my math is correct, I 
was a sophomore in high school. The television was full of mostly 
peaceful marches and peaceful demonstrations.
  It was an issue that those of us who lived in the Midwest were pretty 
much protected from that and didn't see the necessity for those kinds 
of demonstrations right away, but the demonstrations on television, and 
it was important that television did carry that message at the time, 
that educated the American people.
  I look back on that time, that time in history, when we saw mostly 
peaceful marches. We saw fire hoses and dogs, yes, and there was 
violence and there were people that died in the process. But for the 
size nation that we are, for as large a problem that we had, and the 
problem we had was the institutionalization of racial segregation 
primarily in the South. And there were millions of Americans who were 
citizens in good standing that were shut out of the polls and shut out 
of many of the other avenues of what we consider normal life today.
  It is hard for the generations that are sophomores in high school 
today to understand what it was like in those years back in the middle 
1960s and in many of the years before them.
  The circumstances of the segregation in the South and the 
discrimination that was there, the poll taxes, the literacy tests, many 
of the Jim Crow laws that were put in place to keep African Americans 
from going to the polls and being able to vote and help select our 
national leaders and their Members of Congress and their State leaders, 
and participate fully in the life of freedom that had been earned by 
the blood of hundreds of thousands a century earlier; and it took a 
century to get the Voting Rights Act in place after the end of the 
Civil War. That is how big this issue was back in 1965.
  This sore festered for a century. In a century, this Nation couldn't 
find a way to come to grips with the issue of discrimination in the 
South. For me, it is hard for me to have that reference point except 
for what I saw on television and read in the newspaper, and what my 
teachers and classmates and family had to say.
  Some of that, I have to admit, is a little vague in my memory. But I 
can say there was an incident that framed it for me. That was some 
years ago my wife and I needed to go down to New Orleans for a 
conference down there. We decided that we would drive down on the east 
side of the Mississippi River and come back on the west side of the 
Mississippi River. I like to see what is in this country. So when we do 
those trips, we weave back and forth and take side trips.
  As we went down, we stopped also at Vicksburg to see the 
battlegrounds of the great Civil War battles that took place in 
Vicksburg, Mississippi. That was an experience, to stand on that 
hallowed ground and understand the battle that took place there and the 
price that was paid to move forward more on liberating and freeing the 
people that were enslaved the hundreds of years before that.
  But the thing that impressed me the most was the stop that we made in 
Port Gibson, Mississippi. Port Gibson, Mississippi, was a location 
where a priest that had grown up in our hometown, Father Tony Pudenz. 
Father Pudenz had been the pastor in St. Joseph's Church, I believe it 
is St. Joseph's, in Port Gibson, Mississippi. That was his favorite 
parish. That was the place he wanted to retire. In fact, he was on the 
edge of retirement at that moment.
  But as we went through Port Gibson, I knew he had lived there. He had 
grown up in our hometown, and he was about 75 years old. So we drove 
through the town and I looked for the church and rectory. When I found 
the rectory, we pulled in and I knocked on the door. Father Tony Pudenz 
came to the door, actually astonished that someone from Iowa would drop 
in on him unannounced with a surprise, to the rectory at St. Joseph's 
Parish in Port Gibson, Mississippi.
  Well, that visit turned out to be one that framed this for me because 
he took us over to the church which was just a few steps across the 
yard. He said, I want to show you my church. He pointed out that the 
church was built in 1848, and it was built originally with $10,000 that 
was contributed to the parish by the family of Jim Bowie.
  Jim Bowie was killed at the Alamo more than a decade earlier, but the 
family had significant presence in Mississippi and somehow they had 
enough money to make that kind of contribution to that parish in 1848. 
In fact, a lot of woodwork in that church, as I understand the way it 
was told to me by Father Tony Pudenz, was carved by the Bowie family.
  As I looked at that woodwork, I thought about how that tied back to 
the history of the United States and to the history of Texas, and how 
it anchored back to a time before the Civil War.
  As we stood in that church, and the glass in that church is all blue 
tint so it is like standing inside of an iceberg. It is like the sun 
would shine through if you were standing with ice windows rather than 
these blue-tint windows, and it gives almost a surreal sense with the 
woodwork done by the Bowie family and that sense of standing inside an 
iceberg or standing inside an igloo, perhaps, that was done with fairly 
clear ice.
  As we stood there, he pointed up to the balcony. And the balcony, 
very similar to the balcony that the press sits in here in the United 
States Congress, and he said this church was built by these families 
and the floor of the church was for the white families and the balcony 
was for the black families.
  And I looked at that. To stand there in that place and understand 
that in a house of God they would construct a house of God to be 
segregated for one color of people to go up to the balcony and for 
another color of people to be seated downstairs, and for their minds, 
never the twain shall meet; even though they go to church together, 
they would be separate. And I will say certainly equal in the eyes of 
God, but not equal in the eyes of fellow Christians going to church in 
Port Gibson, Mississippi, probably some time well prior to 1848, but 
the church was built beginning in the year 1848.
  As we stood there in the aisle on the floor of that church, he said 
that last week, the previous week, they had buried the editor for the 
newspaper in Port Gibson. This editor of the newspaper was the 
individual who, in 1967, had, with the segregation still in the church, 
went in and sat down with his family, several children, sat down in a 
floor pew, and sat there with his family. And a moment before mass 
began, he got up, took his family and hand in hand they went to the 
back of the church and went up the steps in the back of the church and 
sat down in the balcony with the African Americans that were there to 
go to mass.
  No longer was that church segregated because the editor of that paper 
had the courage and principle to take his family up to the balcony to 
sit with the black families and worship with them together.
  When that happened, part of the people, some of the families, got up 
and walked out of the Catholic Church and

[[Page 14093]]

walked across the street to the Episcopalian Church where those 
families and their descendants worship to this very day.
  At that time, that little parish of St. Joseph was, I think he said, 
about 75 families, maybe it was 90 families, and a mix of three-
quarters white, one-quarter black, but they go to mass together seated 
together as part of God's family like they really are. That is what it 
was like in 1967. That is what it was like in 1965 when the Voting 
Rights Act was passed.
  It is no longer like that in the South today. That is something, an 
experience for me that frames a lot of this issue, and an understanding 
of what went on.
  It was important to pass the Voting Rights Act in 1965. It was 
important to enfranchise every one of the adults that are all viewed to 
be the same as God's children. And we are God's children, all of us.
  We need to guarantee those voting rights to everyone. The Voting 
Rights Act was a quantum leap to do that. The discrimination statistics 
that were there, the statistics that were gathered up beginning in 
1964, and the measurement of those statistics in 1968, and then in 1972 
showed that there were lower percentages of blacks voting than whites 
voting. And there were lower percentages of blacks that were registered 
to vote than there were whites registered to vote, and something needed 
to be changed.
  And so those criteria and other criteria were established and the 
Department of Justice was charged with the enforcement of the Voting 
Rights Act to guarantee a path to the polls for every legitimate voter 
in America, and no longer would there be Jim Crow laws, and no longer 
would there be people who didn't have an opportunity to voice their 
opinion in the polls and choose their local and national leaders.
  The Voting Rights Act has been an extraordinarily successful act. It 
was designed to be temporary. No one believed in 1965 that we couldn't 
cure this problem and at some point we could make enough changes that 
we could move away from the need for those requirements. They were 
strict. They are tough.
  The voting districts that are still under that today are locked in in 
statistics that are measured from 1964, 1968 and 1972. We are not using 
2004 data to evaluate whether Georgia still should be a covered 
district. We are using 1964, 1968 and 1972 data; not 2004, not 2000, 
not 1996 data.
  So those districts that have been declared to be racist, bigoted 
districts that demonstrated that by the statistics that are there, the 
measurement criteria, are stuck in time.
  If we pass this legislation tomorrow with the Voting Rights Act, and 
we use those 1964, 1968 and 1972 statistics to measure States like 
Georgia, Texas and the locales within 16 States across this country, 
they are locked in. They are locked in and can't move a voting booth 
from the Catholic Church to the Episcopalian Church across the street, 
or from the post office to the school. They can't move a voting booth 
10 feet without prior authorization by the Department of Justice.
  That will be the case fixed in time from 1965 until 2032. By 2032, 
that is almost four generations. Four generations could come and go, 
and we are using the same measurement of people in 2032, if we pass 
this legislation as presented to this Congress.
  Thomas Jefferson declared a generation to be 19 years. That is not 
too bad a measure. We know generations turn over a little faster or 
slower than that. But truthfully, 19 years, multiply it out, it is 
almost four generations between 1965 and 2032. But it will be true, 
there won't be anyone voting in 2032 who remembers what it was like in 
1965 when they passed the Voting Rights Act. That would be a simple 
fact.
  And if you want something to be institutionalized in perpetuity in 
legislation in America, then you reauthorize that for a quarter of a 
century or a half a century. By the time that comes up, no one 
remembers what the debate was. No one is vested in any other 
alternative. They just think, huh, that is the way it was then, that is 
the way it always has been, why would we want to change something after 
all these years? It seems to have worked pretty well and they got so 
used to it they can't conceive of not having it in place.

                              {time}  1915

  So I submit that we need to take a look at shortening up the 
reauthorization so that we can do a better look at the effects of any 
changes in this reauthorization for the Voting Rights Act. And I submit 
that districts that are covered, districts today need to have an 
opportunity to work their way out of that that is not as stringent as 
the very, very tight district requirements that are in it today so that 
they can work their way out. And to measure someone by 1964 standards 
in 2032 is just utterly wrong. Back in 1964, to think that the great-
grandchildren of the people that made that decision will be voting in 
2032, and they are responsible? How can we hold them responsible for 
decisions that were part of the culture in 1965?
  So we have come a long way, America, and we will never eradicate 
racism in this country totally. There will always be some elements of 
it because there will always be the levels of prejudice, and they might 
not always be something that can be defined as racism. It might just be 
prejudice that comes from other reasons because there will always be 
competing forces in this society. But the evidence of it has diminished 
significantly and dramatically. And I would like to give the people in 
Georgia and Texas and these other States an opportunity to move out of 
that list. And I would like to, if it is good enough for Georgia and 
Texas, it ought to be good enough for the rest of us. That would be the 
standard that I would go by and then shorten this reauthorization time.
  There is another aspect of this that is an essential piece, and that 
is the Federal mandate for foreign language ballots, and that is a 
piece that we will be debating here on the floor tomorrow.
  The Federal Government, the Congress, in I will say an unexpected 
move in 1975, put into place temporary measures to require a Federal 
mandate for foreign language ballots. Now, I don't remember that there 
were people in America clamoring for the foreign language ballots in 
1975. It may have been the case, but it was designed to be a temporary 
measure. They thought the need for it would diminish as assimilation 
increased.
  What we have seen since 1975 is partly because we are the enablers 
there has been less assimilation instead of more assimilation. The 
direction for more languages in America has increased towards more and 
more languages in America instead of less, and we still have in place 
this mandate for foreign language ballots.
  The reason that I am opposed to requiring them at the Federal level 
is because if you are a naturalized citizen here in United States, by 
law you will have had to demonstrate your proficiency in both the 
spoken and written word of the English language. That is the standard 
that is required before you can be a naturalized citizen. And so if you 
are a naturalized citizen in America, you have no claim to a foreign 
language ballot because the certification of your citizenship says you 
are certified to vote in English. That is one of the important 
responsibilities of citizenship. And if the standard wasn't high enough 
that you can read a ballot, we need to raise the standard, not lower 
the standard and hand you a ballot in a language where there may be 
errors in because we don't have enough interpreters to interpret into 
other foreign languages.
  I simply want to lift the mandate. I want to allow localities to make 
the decision on whether they need to provide foreign language ballots, 
not the Federal Government. I don't want to be printing millions of 
ballots that aren't used. I don't want to get any more letters like 
this letter that I have here in front of where the gentleman who wrote 
it said, in all five elections where I have served as a judge, no 
foreign language ballots were requested in my precinct. Yet in the last 
election in that precinct they printed 33 different kinds of ballots, 
not because there were

[[Page 14094]]

33 different languages but because there were 11 different parties and 
three different languages that were required.
  This is a subject that is easy to understand. It is relatively 
simple. But it's important and it's essential because if we send the 
message out of this Congress that we are going to chase you down and 
hand you a foreign language ballot, whether you want it or not, then we 
are also sending a message that we really aren't serious about 
assimilation.
  And if we are going to be bringing into America 10 million or 60 
million or 90 million new Americans in the next generation, 19 years 
generation, if we are going to do that, we have got to be invested in 
assimilation.
  No nation in the world has ever assimilated the numbers of people or 
the percentage of the population that we have here in this country. But 
there is a limit to what we can do. And if we send the message that 
says we are not serious about assimilation, we are going to be enablers 
for people to live in ethnic enclaves. And if we do that we are 
ensuring that they will not be able to access the American dream.
  That is the wrong message to send. We have to lift the mandate. And 
if it is necessary to have foreign language ballots at the localities, 
then they can make that decision locally. They are paying for it 
anyway.
  And so, Madam Speaker, that is the basis and the core of my argument. 
But there is a gentleman here from New Jersey who is articulate on this 
subject matter, someone whom I look forward to hearing from, and I 
would be very happy to yield as much time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa for 
yielding me the time. And I also appreciate the gentleman from Iowa for 
your work on this issue. I came to the floor to address the issue that 
you were just touching upon, and that was the issue of bilingual or 
multi-lingual ballots.
  But before I get there, let me just touch on something you mentioned 
because you raised an important point, and that is that the current 
extension of the Voting Rights Act, as you referenced going forward for 
25 years, looks all the way back to the initial status and the initial 
data from the early 60s, mid-60s.
  You could step back for a moment and say what was the fundamental 
problem that they were trying to address, legitimately so, at that 
time? And I think you might say you would put it into two categories, 
one personal and the other institutional. Personal, just meaning the 
individuals who may have been involved in the particular voting 
districts at the time that may have been creating illegitimate voting 
barriers for people of different nationalities or different race or 
what have you. And the other would be institutional, and that is to say 
that at that point in time, there were in actuality in America, 
unfortunately, particular institutional barriers as well in place. So 
you could look and say there was two elements that the Voting Rights 
Act had to address. But that, as you also pointed out accurately so, 
was 40 some odd years ago. Those institutional barriers fortunately 
have all been removed. The personal ones, though, interesting, I would 
think just by the advent of time also have to have been removed as well 
because the people who were elected to office in the mid-60s, for one 
reason or another, are no longer with us today, at least not in elected 
office. So the two aspects that the Voting Rights Act were specifically 
going to address from the data back then and the specifications of who 
was in place and what the institutions are no longer with us, not to 
say that we may not have other personal situations that may crop up 
today in the future. And that is why I think you come to the floor, and 
other Members do, such as myself, says that we should strive in this 
House, and in the House just down the halls from here as well to make 
sure that all barriers, personal or institutional, today and in the 
future, will always be removed, and that you will have the fullest 
level of political participation that you can have. So I appreciate you 
bringing out that point of just exactly what we are dealing with when 
we are dealing with the Voting Rights Act.
  But I came to the floor to address the issue of the multi-lingual 
ballots. And I want to begin by giving credit where credit is due, 
because those who are listening here tonight, realizing that the bill 
is coming to the floor tomorrow, may think, based upon some of your 
comments and other things, that things are moving forward just in a 
legitimate and a good manner, and that we are going to succeed in this 
area of eliminating multi-lingual ballots.
  Well, the credit, as my dad always said, ``give credit where credit 
is due.'' And the credit, if we are successful in the amendment coming 
to the floor tomorrow, are due to the gentleman to my right, the 
gentleman from Iowa, because I will say this, that it was in an RSC 
meeting, Republican Study Committee meeting, which meets on Wednesday 
afternoons here, where you came to address the group, brought this to 
my attention, and I think to the attention of a lot of people in the 
RSC for the first time.
  I was struck by it, that this is an issue that needed to be 
addressed. And I was a little bit concerned that there was not enough 
agitation, aggravation or concern among my colleagues that this was 
going to be addressed. But you were a driving force and reassured me, 
you said, ``Scott, I think we are going to be able to build up the 
momentum on this. I think we are going to be able to get the word out 
on this, and I think once people realize just exactly what is in the 
Voting Rights Act, what the problems are and what the changes are 
needed, we are going to be successful.'' I was not as positive as you 
were at that moment, but you were dogged on that like you are dogged on 
so many other things, and I think that with the support of our 
colleagues here tomorrow, and if we hear from the voters who listen to 
this each evening, if they make sure that their Members hear from their 
concerns that we will be successful on this. So I come initially just 
to applaud you and salute you for your dogged determination.
  The problem with the Voters Rights Act and the multi-lingual ballots, 
I think, can be said also to fall under a couple of different 
categories. First is the length of time that you would look for if we 
do not eliminate it, that it would continue for. It will continue for 
25 years. And so just as there was a problem of looking back to the 60s 
and looking at that past data that is incorrect now as we here try to 
legislate today, I would hazard a guess that the circumstances in this 
country will be significantly different than they are today 25 years 
hence.
  Now, I have been here now for 3 years, just as the gentleman from 
Iowa has been as well, and I can think of many other very important 
significant legislations that we have reauthorized. But for the life of 
me, and I stand to be corrected, I cannot think of any other bill, any 
other important issue, whether you are dealing with the air, the water, 
the environment, our schools, our education or our health, our defense 
or otherwise, I cannot think of any other areas, and again I stand to 
be corrected, where we have reauthorized something for two and one-half 
decades. So I think that is the first area that we need to be 
addressing, and you are rightfully so for bringing it up.
  Just as a side note on this, I did put in an amendment that would 
limit this down to 6 years, but that was the proverbial compromise 
amendment if we were not successful in getting your amendment to the 
floor tomorrow which would eliminate the multi-lingual ballots 
entirely. But as I understand, the Rules Committee has met, 4 hours 
ago, around 3:00, and they saw the wisdom of going your road of at 
least allowing the vote on the floor. So we will go for that vote and 
not for the limitation of 6 years.
  The second part, the difficulty or the problem with the current 
status of the VRA, one being the length of time, the second one being 
what is in the current law right now. We are really not, by allowing 
multi-lingual ballots to continue, we are not really enforcing current 
law. Current law, and I should have it right here, says that if you

[[Page 14095]]

come into this country, legally and become a legal naturalized U.S. 
citizen and therefore have the right to vote, current law states that 
you must, according to the law, under section 312 I think you 
referenced, if not on the floor tonight, in previous times, an 
applicant must demonstrate, ``an understanding of the English language, 
including an ability to read, write and speak in ordinary usage the 
English language.''
  So when you think about it, who are the people who are allowed to 
vote in this country? Well, they fall into two categories, one, you 
were born here and so you are a legal citizen, which means you went 
through the entire education process, age 1 through 18 in this country. 
So hopefully you have gone through our fine public schools or private 
or otherwise schools and so you should be able to read the English 
language.
  Second is the naturalized citizens. Naturalized are those who come 
through and come through the process, and those individuals are those 
people I have just cited section 312, who have certified, attested to, 
they have taken a test, a citizenship test, if you will, to become a 
citizen of this country. That test is administered in English. And at 
the end they basically certify that they can, that they possess the 
ability to read, write and speak the English language. So if they are 
able to do that, if they are able to take a test in the English 
language, then you would think they should also be able to complete a 
simple U.S. ballot in any municipality or county or state. So that is 
the second point, that we are basically ignoring current law by 
continuing on with multi-lingual ballots.
  Thirdly, the problem is that this is, once again, another unfunded 
Federal mandate on the county governments, municipal governments and 
the like. I was on the phone about I guess 3 weeks ago, some time after 
you were speaking at the RSC, and I was speaking with election 
commissioners throughout the State, my State of New Jersey, and they 
were telling me about the costs that they have to be engaged in to pay 
for it. It comes out of the taxpayers' pockets to print up and publish 
and mail out these multi-lingual ballots. That comes out of local 
taxpayers. Doesn't come out of this House. Doesn't get appropriated 
from Washington. And so that is just another example of where we are 
sending down the rules. We are putting out the mandates by passing the 
VRA with this language in it, but someone else foots the bill. So there 
is another problem with the VRA, that it is an unfunded mandate.
  Another, fourth aspect is the basically arbitrary and capricious 
nature in the way that the multi-lingual ballots are implemented under 
the VRA and have been in the past and will be unless the King amendment 
is passed tomorrow.

                              {time}  1930

  And I think you have touched upon this in the past, but let us make 
the point clear to those who don't follow it, that the way you look to 
determine whether or not a multilingual ballot is necessary and 
required under the VRA is to say whether or not 5 percent of the 
population in that respective voting district cannot speak the English 
language.
  One of the primary functions or processes in order to determine that 
is to look at the surnames of those individuals, and I think you have 
already given examples, and other people that have come to this floor 
have given examples, that just because you have an Asian surname, it 
does not necessarily mean that that is your language and you cannot 
speak English. Just because you have an Hispanic surname does not mean 
that you cannot read or write the English language. And in some sense, 
therefore, it is insulting to those individuals.
  So the fourth aspect is the arbitrary and capricious nature of the 
way that the multilingual ballot law is required and enforced; and 
because it is arbitrary and capricious, it creates two things: It 
creates a disincentive for those people who are new to this country to 
assimilate into this Nation and learn the predominant language, which 
is English, so it is a disincentive to them.
  And, secondly, I guess the word to be almost an insulting nature to 
them, that just because you are new to this country or may have been 
here for several years as naturalized citizens that you don't possess 
the ability to learn to read and write the English language.
  And I will close on this. When I had the opportunity to speak with 
some election commissioners, they have told me that they have received 
letters from voters in their district complaining that they got a 
multilingual ballot, saying, in essence, What are you saying about me? 
Is the government saying that I am not smart enough to read and speak 
the English language? So the people, basically, were insulted, if you 
will, by the fact that just because they have an Hispanic surname or 
another surname of sorts that the government has taken the position 
that they cannot read and write the English language.
  So there are one, two, three, four problems: that it is an overly 
extended time for reauthorization; that we are not complying with or 
basically ignore the current law, which is a law that requires people, 
when they come into this country, to attest to the fact that they can 
speak and read and understand the English language; thirdly, that this 
is yet again another unfunded mandate by the Federal Government; and, 
fourthly, that it is basically an arbitrary and capricious standard 
that we are applying to the States.
  Applying the 5 percent rule in basically an insulting and 
discriminatory matter, discriminatory in the sense that if there is 
another ethnic group, another individual group there that has maybe 4 
percent, 4.5 percent, they do not rise to that level, but someone at 5 
percent does rise to that level.
  So there are four basic problems that lead the gentleman from Iowa 
and me to believe that there is not a fundamental reason for us to 
continue the VRA multilingual ballot.
  And I would hope that we will get sufficient votes tomorrow, Mr. 
King, to pass your amendment and move forward to correcting this 
portion of the VRA.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the 
gentleman from New Jersey for his contribution to this discussion and 
this debate here this evening. And, also, I thank him for his dogged 
determination on a number of sound causes that he and I have worked 
together on.
  And sometimes I just simply admire the work that Mr. Garrett does. 
And I am not always over there to lend a hand, but I want him to know 
that, if needed, I am willing to on any subject that I can think of 
that Mr. Garrett has brought forward. And I appreciate the leadership 
and support that has been there on this cause.
  It has not been an easy task. I had not thought about it as dogged 
determination; I had simply thought about it as a cause and a principle 
that needed to be established. Simple common sense if you are going to 
have a Nation that promotes assimilation and one of the standards of 
that promotion of assimilation is a Federal law that defines the 
standards by which people that come to this country are naturalized, 
conditions they must meet before they can get a hold of that brass ring 
called citizenship.
  And, Mr. Speaker, citizenship needs to be precious. It needs to have 
great value. If we are going to be a strong nation, we have got to look 
at this flag and feel that lump come into our chest when it comes down 
in the parade. We have got to have a sense of common history, a sense 
of unity, a sense of common cause. And if we market citizenship off 
cheaply and if we diminish those standards, then we are going to find 
that our values also are scattered and diluted and diminished.
  But when we pull ourselves together with this and we promote the idea 
of assimilation, and that is that the language requirements for 
demonstration of English proficiency are in the Federal Code 4, it is 
to set that standard high enough that anyone who then is naturalized as 
an American citizen has a significant amount of English proficiency 
that will let them go out into

[[Page 14096]]

the rest of the world and access this American Dream.
  And we know that the lowest numbers that I can find are that those 
who speak English in the United States earn at least 17 percent more 
than those who do not speak English in the United States. Those who 
speak English well earn more than twice as much as someone who does 
not. So these issues are important.
  Some of the standards that we used to require in our Federal mandate, 
the standards that we use that establish the determination that there 
will be foreign language ballots imposed into these districts, whether 
anyone actually asks for one or not, the issue that was brought up by 
Mr. Garrett that the standards of 5 percent or 10,000 people, whichever 
comes first, is the standard that would then require limited English 
proficiency groups, would require those ballots to go into a district. 
And, now, how do you measure who speaks English in a limited-English-
proficient manner? And the manner that was brought up by Mr. Garrett, 
the surname analysis, can you imagine having a computer program, and in 
that program you run through it the last names of all of the voters 
that are registered in that voting district, and you have software set 
up that picks up things like the little apostrophe over the ``O'' in 
maybe an Hispanic name or the configuration of the vowels and the 
consonants when it comes in a certain way that indicates that it is a 
surname of a certain nationality.
  So this surname analysis will do a measure of likely Hispanic last 
names, or I should say Spanish last names, or maybe likely Asian or 
Chinese last names. I do not know if it picks out the Irish or not, but 
I can go through the phone book and do that. So it kicks out these 
names. And if it kicks out 10,000 names that have a Spanish last name 
or 10,000 names that are Chinese last names, or 5 percent or more of 
that voting district that are Spanish, Chinese, Lithuanian, whatever 
the subject might be, then by Federal law there will be ballots printed 
in those languages at that locale, paid for by the local election board 
or the county taxes or whoever is the one in each particular State that 
determines that, a Federal mandate, an unfunded mandate.
  And I especially think it is ironic about Spanish surnames, because 
some of these people that have a Spanish surnames are descended from 
immigrants that came here in the 1500s. They have been here since about 
before the Mayflower, before Jamestown. They came up to the Southwest. 
They were Americans long before anybody else that I know of, and yet we 
would presume by their last name alone the prejudicial preconception 
that we have to send them Spanish language ballots.
  It is a lousy measure. It has never been a good measure. It is 
actually, I believe, a prejudiced measure, to be so prejudiced that 
because of your name, they can determine whether you can speak English. 
That should be anathema to all of in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, and I 
hope that we fix that tomorrow.
  But another measure that is equally as ridiculous is the census, 
another way that we determine whether people can speak English well 
enough to qualify for all-English ballots or whether we have to give 
them a ballot in another language and impose that upon them whether 
they want it or not.
  So the United States Census puts out this questionnaire, and 
presumably there is someone sitting down interpreting the 
questionnaire. I do not think it just gets mailed out in other 
languages. But they ask the question, How well do you speak English? A, 
not at all; B, not well, do not speak English well; C, speak English 
well; or, D, speak English very well.
  Now, if you say that you don't speak English at all or not well or 
even if you say that you speak English well, all three of those 
categories, A, B, and C, are all measured as limited-English-
proficiency speaking. Even if you say you speak English well, you have 
to say that you speak English very well in order to not be qualified as 
having limited English proficiency that would trigger the foreign 
language ballots.
  So I think there have to be English professors, high school 
literature teachers, probably politicians as well, who make their 
living with this language, who will read that and think ``I have never 
reached the standard that I thought I ought to; so I do not want to be 
so proud that I put down I speak it very well. I think I will just put 
down I speak it well. And, inadvertently, they will be putting 
themselves in a category that will be calling for a foreign language 
ballot.
  And with the Chinese language, how many dialects are there, 300 and 
some dialects? At least it used to be. But which version of Chinese is 
it? Is it Mandarin? Is it Cantonese? Is it any other version there?
  There is really no way we can administer this effectively with an 
equal protection perspective as long as it is a Federal mandate. And it 
is a Federal mandate. It is a federally unfunded mandate that imposes 
foreign language ballots on voting districts whether anyone wants them 
or not and whether anyone calls for them or not. In fact, I do not know 
that there are records kept on these ballots and how many are actually 
used. If there were, I would like to have seen those records.
  But to give you an example, Mr. Speaker, this letter came, and it is 
dated June 24, so it is fairly fresh. And I just happened to be going 
through my mail a couple of days ago; and I get a packet of it, and I 
read through it, and try to be tuned in to what the American citizens 
have to say about the work that we are doing here.
  And this gentleman has freed me up to speak about this openly and 
publicly and into the Record. But I think for the sake of avoiding the 
kind of things that might come, I will just read it to you and 
represent it without identifying him individually. But this is an 
individual who is a judge in a voting district out in California. He 
has a Ph.D., and he is an educator, a professor. He has a good handle 
on the English language.
  But it says in his letter: ``Dear Congressman King, let me express my 
support for your efforts to let the multilingual ballot provision of 
the Voting Rights Act fade into the sunset. For several years I have 
served as an election judge in a polling place in my hometown,'' which 
is in California. ``My precinct over the years has around 650 
registered voters. In the June, 2006, primary, we had 11 parties on the 
ballot.'' That would be political parties. ``We had available 33 
separate ballots because members of each of the 11 parties had ballots 
available to them in three languages--English, Spanish, and Chinese. In 
the primary, general, and special elections over the past years in 
which I have served, no voter has ever requested a ballot in a language 
other than English.'' I will repeat that. ``No voter has ever requested 
a ballot in a language other than English.
  ``Putting aside the question of the appropriateness of ballots in 
languages other than English, I would simply point out the large cost 
to the county in complying with the Voting Rights Act. The waste of 
public money is significant. As a Republican, I would be truly 
disappointed if a Republican majority in the House and the Senate 
cannot repeal at least the multiple language provisions in the Voting 
Rights Act.
  ``Very truly yours . . . '' A copy sent to the chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee as well.
  So we made contact with this gentleman. And in there again he 
reiterated that in all five elections where he has served as a judge, 
no foreign language ballots were ever requested in his precinct even 
though they had 33 different versions in this last primary election. 
Thirty-three, not one other than English was called for. And it cost 
his county, and I believe this to be a low-population county, $100,000 
approximately per election to print foreign language ballot materials 
and to administer and to translate.
  So $100,000 does not sound like a lot to a Member of Congress when we 
deal with billions and, in fact, trillions of dollars, but it adds up 
over this country. We have thousands of counties in

[[Page 14097]]

America. And of those that are compelled to print these foreign 
language ballots, the dollars contribute.
  And it isn't just the cost of it. It isn't just the burden of the 
administration. But it is the risk of the mistakes that come when we 
translate into foreign languages.
  We have to have a standard. We have to have an official ballot. And 
when you start translating into foreign languages, you lose the sense 
and the meaning. And there are languages out there that their voice 
inflection determines the meaning and its context determines the 
meaning, so it becomes a judgment call on how it is interpreted.
  And, again, we do not interfere with the right of the localities to 
print foreign language ballots if they so choose. What we do is just 
remove the unfunded Federal mandate that requires foreign language 
ballots and we let the localities make the determination on how they 
are going to provide ballots that can be read and utilized by the 
people that are there in the fashion that they see fit. There is 
nothing that prevents them from doing that. In fact, there is nothing 
that prevents them from doing that today, Mr. Speaker.
  In fact, I have here a copy of yesterday's USA Today.

                              {time}  1945

  It lays out circumstances in the State of Wisconsin. The headline in 
this story is, ``Lawmaker critical of Wisconsin translations.'' We are 
going to disagree about these things across the country. It is part of 
our system, but the story reads like this.
  ``The Wisconsin State election board began translating voter 
registration forms and absentee ballot applications into Spanish and 
Hmong this year, a move that one State lawmaker says could swing an 
election.
  ```This is for people who function on a day-to-day basis in languages 
other than English but want to acclimate to Wisconsin and to 
participate in the democratic process,' Elections Board spokesman Kyle 
Richmond says.
  ``Translating the voting materials was not required under the Voting 
Rights Act because Hmong- and Spanish-speaking residents make up fewer 
than 5 percent of the State's eligible voters.''
  Mr. Speaker, we do not address that issue. We leave that intact. If 
States want to determine they are going to print foreign language 
ballots, they will print them.
  We also protect and preserve the Federal statute that exists that 
allows an individual to bring a translator into the voting booth with 
them. So, if ballots can be printed in foreign languages because of the 
local government, if we protect the tenth amendment, the States rights 
issue, and let them determine their election process, and if we lift 
the foreign language ballot, the Federal mandate, the unfunded mandate 
for foreign language ballots, then we have got the principles of the 
tenth amendment there, the States rights issue. We have got that and we 
support that. We support the Federalism issue that government is better 
off if it is devolved to the States and remains in the States rather 
than bring the power here to Washington, D.C. It is time to get it back 
to the States where they belong.
  I would submit another issue that seems to be a bit of a curiosity to 
me, Mr. Speaker, and that is the issue of what will be the case when we 
get to that point where there are voting districts where no one in that 
district speaks English. Is it presumed by law that one would have to 
then qualify under this Federal mandate to get an English language 
ballot, even if no one wanted one in that district?
  Well, it seems a little hard to conceive of this today, but it is far 
easier to conceive of this today than it was easy to conceive of this 
in 1965 when this was not part of the law, but in 1975, when it was put 
into the law and they believed that it would be temporary then, those 
who voted for this provision, this unfunded Federal mandate for foreign 
language ballots are the people who, if they are watching us today, if 
they are on this planet or looking down on us from above, would be 
astonished that we would still have this in place. They would be 
astonished that we have this difficult of a debate going on about 
whether we can simply let the sunset take place, let these provision 
requirements expire and allow States rights to take place and allow 
localities to make these decisions.
  This is just an interesting subject that we will take up tomorrow, 
Mr. Speaker. We will debate this significantly and intensively, and I 
am hopeful that the wisdom of this Chamber will be reflected in a 
positive vote on the floor here in the United States House of 
Representatives.
  I am quite appreciative of all the effort that has gone into this. 
This has been a spontaneous effort, not an orchestrated effort but a 
spontaneous effort, and sometimes when you stand up and take a stand it 
reflects through the hearts and the philosophies of those of us who are 
charged with representing the wishes of the people in all of America.
  I know that when this bill, the reauthorization of the Voting Rights 
Act until 2032 came to the Judiciary Committee and I offered a couple 
of amendments then to try to improve it, the climate in the committee 
at that time was not very conducive to amendments being adopted. Yet, I 
made the argument, offered the amendments, and there were nine that 
voted with me on the amendment that would have eliminated this Federal 
mandate for foreign language ballots. That was a significant amount on 
the amendment.
  But on final passage, then I found myself as the sole voice that 
voted ``no'' on the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in the 
Judiciary Committee, 33-1 was the vote, and I have often said when I 
found myself the lone vote, dissenting from everyone else, I use a 
defense, it is a little ditty that I simply memorized, and it talks 
about the people's judgment, people's judgment being a democratic vote, 
a majority vote that rules here in this House, as it should, and it 
goes like this: Nor is the people's judgment always true, but most can 
err as grossly as the few.
  In this case, I do not want to point out the people that disagreed 
with me on this issue as necessarily erring, but I want to point out 
the necessity to stand on principle and how a single vote can make a 
big difference, and with that 33-1 vote, had I not put that vote up, it 
would have been unanimous coming out of the Judiciary Committee. Had it 
been unanimous, it would have been very difficult for anyone to make an 
argument we should reconsider the cover districts arguments from 
Georgia, Texas and other covered districts that have been led so well 
by Lynn Westmoreland and Charlie Norwood.
  That team has been strong and powerful, and they have been dogged in 
their determination, and they have been relentless, and they believe 
powerfully in their cause. I support the spirit of their efforts, but 
that would have, I believe, have fallen on deaf ears if it had been a 
unanimous vote out of the Judiciary Committee, but one ``no'' vote gave 
them a small beachhead to go to work on and their beachhead gave a 
beachhead for the rest of us to head our positions together here and 
our need to allow the sunset of the foreign language ballot mandate to 
take place.
  I reflect back upon the moment when I gave a Memorial Day speech in 
Denison, Iowa, and as I finished my speech and as the ceremonies 
concluded, the mayor came up with his little baby in his arms, and I 
suppose he was 6-weeks-old at the time. So I took a look, good look at 
that healthy, little boy, and I said to the mayor what is his name. 
Well, his name is John Quincy. I said John Quincy. John Quincy said 
always vote for principle, though you may vote alone. You can take the 
sweetest satisfaction in knowing that your vote is never lost. He 
looked at me and he smiled and he held that little boy, and he said 
that is why I named him John Quincy. He will be a man of principle.
  That always matters to vote your principle, though you may vote 
alone, but your vote is never lost. There are stories after stories on 
how important it is how one vote can make a significant difference in 
America.
  This may be one of those times. I am hopeful it will be one of these 
times,

[[Page 14098]]

Mr. Speaker, but I believe strongly that there is not a necessity out 
there for the Federal Government to mandate foreign language ballots. I 
believe strongly that we need to send a message that we are a Nation 
that welcomes legal immigrants with open arms, we encourage them to 
come into this fold.
  I go and speak at the naturalization services whenever I have the 
opportunity. They are some of the most moving experiences that I have. 
When I look people in the eye and I can see that mist, that moistness 
in their eyes, that sense that that event in their lifetime ranks right 
up there with the wedding day or the day that their first-born child 
might be born with important moments in their lives, and there are many 
of them that will say that is the most important moment in their lives.
  So I have had the opportunity at those naturalization services to 
remark about how important it is, from my perspective, and how I am 
moved by the stories that came through my family about my ancestors who 
came here, and I sign and autograph a Constitution for each one of the 
newly naturalized citizens I have had the privilege to speak to at a 
ceremony and pass them out and congratulate them and ask them to keep 
that Constitution close to them, close to their heart like mine is 
close to my heart, read it, study it, understand it, linking it to this 
history, becoming part of this shared experience that we have, reach 
out and reach towards this American dream, this American dream that 
really is to leave this world a better place than it was when we came, 
to lay the groundwork so our children can have a better opportunity 
than we have had.
  We think it gets harder every generation, but it is hard every 
generation, and our parents gave us more opportunity than they had. So 
it goes, back through the generations, and so it needs to go on through 
the succeeding generations in the same fashion.
  If America is going to be this glorious Nation that we have become, 
if we are going to take ourselves to the next level of our destiny, we 
always have to reach out and ask to challenge people to follow through 
in this American dream, to make America a better place.
  So we can do that by promoting this great unifying idea of a common 
language. It is the most powerful unifying force known throughout 
history for all humanity. It is true for all languages. It just happens 
to be that we are fortunate in this country that our language is the 
English language, the language of business for the world, the language 
of the maritime industry for the world, the language of air traffic 
controllers and all air traffic communications in the world and this 
language that has been the companion to freedom everywhere throughout 
the world.
  As I read the book written by Winston Churchill called, the History 
of the English-Speaking Peoples, and I followed through on that 
history, as each tracks the English-speaking peoples around the globe 
and a part of its conquest and trade and colonization, but the English 
people never doubted and never lacked for faith in their civilization, 
in their culture, in their destiny, in their duty, and they promoted 
those values around the globe. As they did so, wherever they went, they 
left the English language, and wherever the Americans have gone, we 
have left the English language. If you go places today, and follow the 
English language wherever the English language is, you will find 
freedom, also.
  Freedom's been a companion to the English language wherever it has 
gone around the globe. We should be very grateful we are descended from 
English common law that respects these values that we have. We have 
taken up that cause, and we have advanced it beyond this constitutional 
republic that we have that is rooted in this responsibility to be an 
informed citizen and active citizen and informed voter. Part of that 
responsibility is to get informed within this English language so you 
can understand this culture of America.
  It is very difficult to understand the decisions that have been made 
if you are not able to access the common newspapers that are there, not 
able to get on the Internet and not able perhaps to carry on in 
conversations around your entire regular travels that you have. It is 
very difficult. It is not impossible, but if we allow the localities to 
make the decisions on whether or not there are going to be foreign 
language ballots and what languages they might be in.
  You can bet that those localities will be looking at these like this 
county in California, this particular voting district in California 
with the 650 registered voters, and they would say, well, we printed 
the last five elections in 33 different ballots and three different 
languages and no one in all that time has asked for a foreign language 
ballot; you suppose maybe this time we ought to cut those numbers down 
and maybe eliminate it all together and just put English language 
ballots out there like we did in the past? I think the answer is, yes, 
let us stop that waste; let us stop being bigoted in saying everyone 
cannot understand a language because of their last name.
  Then perhaps there will be others like Wisconsin in this other USA 
Today article that is here, Mr. Speaker, where they decide at the 
locality, we want to spend the money, we want to take that 
responsibility, we want to reach out to the Hmong- and the Spanish-
speaking people and give them a ballot in a language that they can 
understand and be comfortable with.
  Now, I would question why it would be that they could be American 
citizens in Wisconsin and not speak the English language well enough to 
vote. I would question that, but that is a debate for Wisconsin, not a 
debate for this Congress.
  So I submit, Mr. Speaker, that tomorrow we will make a decision. It 
will be a big decision. It will be a decision that will have long-term 
implications. Those long-term implications do not seem very big today 
as we talk about the simplicity of this argument. No one will be 
disenfranchised from being able to vote. I ask them to become informed 
voters, and that is a challenge out there to English speakers and to 
other speakers to become an informed voter.
  But what is down the line is the message that we are sending to the 
newly arriving Americans that 10 or 20 or 60 or 90 million Americans 
that we might have within the next generation, that message that here 
is our language, learn this language. We will not be able to say that 
if the first thing we do is hand them a foreign language ballot. How do 
we ask them to assimilate if we are going to be enablers?
  That is the question that is before us. That is the long-term 
implication of these questions that are before us, Mr. Speaker, and I 
am going to ask this body tomorrow to make a long-term, wise decision, 
save millions of taxpayer dollars, take the oppressive thumb off the 
back of localities, let them make the decisions themselves, let them 
reach out to people and take care of them in that fashion, save the 
money, provide better, more efficient services, do the right thing, 
preserve the tenth amendment, preserve the idea of Federalism and move 
this Nation to the next level of its destiny so that we can be a Nation 
that welcomes all, with equal opportunity for all and prejudice against 
none and prejudice towards none.

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