Voting Rights Reauthorization Act

VOTING RIGHTS REAUTHORIZATION ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 13, 2006)

(Mr. JEFFERSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Speaker, today this body will take up reauthorizing critical provisions of the historic Voting Rights Act for another 25 years.

Every year new cases of voter intimidation are reported to the Department of Justice, and every year changes to voting laws threaten to curtail the power of minority voters. In my home State of Louisiana, the State legislature has faced objections to proposed election law changes every year since this historic bill was signed.

Mr. Speaker, my own mother had to pass a literacy test to vote just a few years before the Voting Rights Act became law, so it has special personal meaning for me. Yet, since its passage, challenges to minority voting rights continue in my home State and across the South.

It has been 41 years since President Johnson signed the original legislation that restored faith in our democracy and gave truth to President Lincoln's demand for a government of the people. After Hurricane Katrina, minorities in Louisiana face new obstacles in exercising our right to vote. The Voting Rights Act is just as relevant today as it was in 1965.

The struggle is not over, and we must not stop now. I urge my colleagues to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act now and in the spirit in which it was intended.

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