[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 10415]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1220
                           VOTING RIGHTS ACT

  (Mr. HIMES asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, this morning in striking down the 
discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act, the Supreme Court stood for an 
idea that permeates this institution: that regardless of who you are, 
the color of your skin, or whom you choose to love, the United States 
will not discriminate against you.
  Unfortunately, yesterday the Supreme Court went in exactly the wrong 
direction on an even more fundamental issue: that those of us who serve 
here, our laws, our President, our Members of Congress, are elected by 
the people of the United States in a truly equal fashion.
  We acknowledge that progress has been made in those regions that 
historically discriminated against minorities, but we also acknowledge 
that the problem is still there. Justice Ginsburg's dissenting opinion 
has example after example of discrimination. For example, in 2004, 
Waller County, Texas, threatened to prosecute two black students after 
they announced their intention to run for office.
  Mr. Speaker, business should cease on this floor until we take up the 
Supreme Court's challenge to modernize and reinstitute the heart of the 
Voting Rights Act so that we can all look each other in the eye and 
say, We are here because the American people, all of them, elected us.

                          ____________________