[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 10635]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           VOTING RIGHTS ACT

  (Mr. GOHMERT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, my friends across the aisle obviously are 
concerned about section 4 of the Voting Rights Act being struck down.
  We debated the extension of the Voting Rights Act in the Judiciary 
Committee, and I have great respect for then-Chairman John Conyers. And 
as I mentioned to him privately, as well, there's no way it's going to 
avoid being violative of equal protection when you have, as was 
determined in 2009, five of the six original States that now have less 
racial disparity than the rest of the country and the worst racial 
disparity is in Massachusetts. You can't just cram a punishment down on 
States just because you have a majority when great work has been done 
by the Voting Rights Act. It has done a good thing, and it was time for 
a new formula so we could capture the States that showed such racial 
disparity.
  I look forward to working with my friends across the aisle to 
subjecting Massachusetts and any other violators--I know there aren't 
any others that bad--to section 5, and I'm sure we can get that done.

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