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Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Mister speaker, I rise today to oppose this rule and to support the previous question and the democracy. The right to vote is the most powerful non voluntary we have. Many people march and protested for the right to vote. Some gave a little blood, and others lost their lives. Some of you have heard me say that the right to vote is precious, almost sacred. In my hearts of hearts, I believe that we should make it simple and convenient for all of our citizens to be part of the
democratic process. It should not matter well you're black or white, Latino, Asian, American, a Native Americans. We should be able to participate in the democratic process. On March seventh, nineteen sixty five, I gave a little blood on the Ethnic Pitters Bridge for the right to vote before the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five. Is pious. Some people had to count the number above us and the bar of soap, the number of jellybeans in a jar, and all across from America. Today,
when people go out to attempt to vote. They're standing long in movable lines. That's not right, it's not fair, and it's not just. We can do better, and we must do better. We have a mall abigation, a mission, and a mandate to empower all of the American people, not just a select few. We must do what is right, what's fair, and what is just. Today democracy is on attack. I force it within and forces abroad. We need to
fix it, and fix it now. For these reasons, I'm proud to insponse to Hr twelve, the Voter Empowerment Act, with my friends and my colleagues. It is a good deal, a necessary deal, and a patriotic deal to protect and to preserve our voting system. I urge each and every one of you to support the previous question and I yeel back. Thank you, missing mc governor.
Welcome home, y'all. I'm Angela Rai. I'm hosting today's solo pod on voting rights. Voting rights where So. Just last week the Supreme Court issued and a decision we talked about on the podcast last week in Louisiana versus Calais, a decision that single handedly eliminated the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five. This just on the other side of its sixtieth anniversary last year, sixty years later, sixty
one years later. John Roberts, not John Lewis, has been in our lifelong quest since he was a young man in the Department of Justice to end and eliminate the Voting Rights Act.
The Saint John Roberts, by the way that.
In the Shelby Versus Holder decision in twenty thirteen, says, don't worry about Section five that were taken away from
you here everybody. Section five was a section in the bill that ensured that states who had a pattern in practice of discriminating against voters they had to send in their plans right to be pre cleared by the Justice Department, by the Civil Rights Division and the Justice Department, they would have to send in their max They would have to send in their plans to say we're ensuring that
people have unfettered access to the ballot box. Well, John Roberts, along with his colleagues in twenty thirteen and Shelby Versus Holders, say, you know, we're really beyond that. Racism no longer exists in this country and people can vote fairly. And the evidence of that they didn't say this, but this is the subtext. The evidence of that is, y'all had your first black president in two thousand and eight.
Right, So instead of.
Protecting people's right to vote, especially in the South, we're gonna eliminate this provision. And we're actually gonna ask Congress to go back to the drawing board, reauthorize a Voting Rights Act, and ensure that this is now modernized, that it's no longer reflecting on the United States history that existed in nineteen sixty five.
It's time to modernize that.
Never mind the fact that this was just reauthorized in two thousand and six, two years before Barack Obama went his election, and he said, and if all else fails, you still have section two of the Voting Rights Act, where there's some elements of a preclearance section. It's not specific to the South, but states can still submit their plans there. Well, let me just stop for just a moment and say, I want us to look at what happened in two thousand and six.
In two thousand and six.
There was a Republican member of Congress named John I'm sorry, James Sinson Brenner. James Sinson Brenner or Jim Sinson Brenner, was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the time. James Sinson Brenner was a Republican from Wisconsin, and yet James Sinson Brenner in two thousand and six introduced HR nine. It was the Fanny Lou Hamer Rosa, Parks and Coreta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of two thousand and six. Let me tell you all something.
In two thousand and six, this vote passed the Senate. This bill passed the Senate by a ninety eight to zero vote, a unanimous vote for the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization. In two thousand and six, in the House where James Cinson Rinner was again the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, this vote, this vote was three ninety to thirty three. Three hundred and ninety members of Congress voted for the Fannie Louhamer Rosa, Parks and Correta Scott King Voting Rights
Excuse me, Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act. Two years goes by, and there's a major change in this country. Two years goes by, and there's a black man who runs for president who says, yes, we can and hope and change we can believe in. And two more years goes by. In twenty ten, there is the rise of
the Tea Party. In twenty ten, there is a mass movement by an organization called ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, to push for voter ID bills and to push for the short of early voting and.
To make it hard for people, harder for people.
To vote absentee because in the minds of some of the people in this country, they decided that there was no way that a black man could win for president unless they cheated. So now all of a sudden, voter fraud became an issue. And you heard advocates, civil rights advocates that want to protect voting rights say that these bills, the voter ID bills in particular, particular in which more than a hundred of these bills were introduced in state
legislatures across the country. You heard voting rights advocates say, this is a solution in search of a problem.
Right.
So, in twenty thirteen, the Supreme Court, here's the Shelby versus Holder case, where I just told you what John Roberts says, don't worry about section five because we still have section two. And there were other advocates that stood up to say, you know, this is going to become a problem. And around this time Reverend Jackson, God rest his soul, lifted up his voice to say something he'd
been saying for some time. But Reverend Jackson really went on a tour to cities to enforce just how important and how necessary a constitutional amendment for the right to vote is, because he knew that this Voting Rights Act energy would soon shift, that the bipartisan way in which the Voting Rights Act had been passed since nineteen sixty sixty five would shift right. So this is what Reverend Jackson said when he visited Ohio today.
August six, nineteen to five, Wilder Rights Act was signed a full film of muhammad Yah commitment. Prior to nineteen five, because states controlled the process and suppressed the vote, blue blacks could not vote, Men about from South, White women couldnot serve in jurors. Eighteen year olds could not vote. You couldn't vote on college campus, federal absentee, or go home to vote. You cannot vote by language. The felleral
government intervene to assure Americans the right to vote. But today we have still the state's rights schemes to suppress the vote. It means in Hamilton County they're trying to move early vote to the outskirts of town to make it more difficult. In North Carolina, it means voting from college campuses. In Texas means you can vote with the gun registration, another student of registration. We need the amendment to the Constitution right we should be a fundamental right
to vote. We needed amendmit the Constitution. I have one election. Now we have fifty elections, fifty state separate and nonepal election. We should have one uniform system of voting for federal elections for all Americans.
Reverend Jackson for a long time talked about how this fundamental right to vote was key. He talked about this constitutional amendment often. But when this happened with Shelby versus Holder, when the voting rights, the voter ID bills started popping up, he started using his voice even louder. And I remember, being a younger professional, thinking, we don't have to spend this much time talking.
About the right to vote anymore. We have it, We got it. Locked.
There are other things we got to focus on, access to capital, making sure that black contractors can keep their doors open, ensuring that there are all of these other things that we focus on. That black people are paid the same thing as their white counterparts. That when black people go to buy homes, that their interest rates are the same as their white counterparts, That they don't reduce the value of the home because the black family lives there.
We can live wherever we want, drive the cars we want.
To drive, right that we can be admitted to the schools we want to be admitted to. Affirmative action is really the thing that's hanging in the balance, is what I thought. But when you lived through fighting for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, certainly you know just how fragile it is. And that is what Reverend tried to remind us. That that is what John Lewis tried to remind us about. And these are the things that we took for granted.
And now here we are in the throes of a battle, not for the soul of America, but we for what we know we deserve and is rightfully ours in this country. So I just want to sit here just for a second, because I think this is important. So we talked about Shelby versus Holder, Louisiana versus Calais. We spent a lot of time on the podcast just last week. But last night something happened. Something happened that really, y'all was.
Jarring to me.
Last week there were members of Congress who said that, yeah, they made this decision in Louisiana versus Calais, but you know, no states are are gonna move, no states are gonna do anything this quickly. After all, it takes the Supreme Court thirty days at least for this decision really to become finalized. So this decision was challenged by the Supreme Court or to the Supreme Court about when it would take effect. Because right now Louisiana has an election going
on April first. Folks who are in the military fighting overseas or stationed overseas already got their ballots if they're registered to vote in Louisiana in the primary, already got their ballots. Absentee ballots have already gone out because it's May fifth. Well, last night the Supreme Court said, I know what we normally do, but this time it's different because we don't want people to be voting under an
unconstitutional map. We think that having two black representatives in Congress for a state that is one third black is unconstitutional. So we actually think this Supreme Court decision should go into effect even sooner. We think it should be immediate. We know what we normally say, what we normally do, but there is no rhyme or reason for these people despite the fact that an election is already happening. You're talking about unconstitutional already happening. We want to disenfranchise all
of those people. Throw out these ballads and agree with what Donald Trump said on true Social Let's pull that up. We want to go ahead and be superpartisan, highly political. We want to side with Donald Trump. Can we pull up that truth Social post from Donald Trump. I'm gonna read it. He says, we cannot allow there to be an election that is conducted on unconstitutionally simply for the convenience of state legislatures. He says, if they have to vote twice, so be it. He says, if they have
to vote twice, so be it. The man that complains constantly about voter fraud is telling you that if you have to vote twice, so be it. He says, we should demand that state legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done. That is more important than administrative convenience. Is the right to vote a mere administrative convenience?
I don't think so.
The byproduct is that the Republicans will receive more than twenty House seats in the upcoming midterms.
President Donald J.
Trump, so he's celebrating a victory where he stacked the deck against people.
Let me go personal for y'all for just a moment.
We can pull that down.
I don't know if you all have ever been in a toxic relationship, And shout out to our good friend and sister Tiffany Cross, whose book has dropped today. If y'all haven't haven't picked it up, pick it up. And she's talking about a toxic relationship with the country, her career, and with a man that she loved. So I just want to go here for just a second in honor
a tif today. So, if you've ever been in a toxic relationship, one where you didn't feel heard, you say the same thing over and over again, and they pretend not to hear you, and then you say you know what I'm done. I'm finally going to leave this thing. Right, you leave, and the person.
Who never heard you finally heard everything you said. They finally get it.
They understanding, light bulb goes off, They're with you, all of a sudden, they get it right. This is what America has done to Black people historically. They haven't heard us. They treated us like we don't matter. They make it hard for us. We are in a toxic, abusive, emotionally psychologically, mentally abusive, and sometimes physically abusive relationship with this country.
They have done everything in their power to make it harder for us to vote, all the while telling us that our issues don't matter, that our bodies don't matter, that our personhood certainly does not matter. And yet Donald Trump tells you the quiet part out loud. He says the quiet part out loud. He says that if this all goes right, there will be twenty new Republican seats
for the midterms. Because the only way this fool could win an election is to stack the deck against us, the most powerful people on the planet.
That's the only way he can win. And so while our.
Folks are struggling to fight against you know, what frankly is an uphill battle. Our folks still haven't given up. So the Supreme Court last night said this decision will come go into effect immediately. Last week, before the decision came out, the Mississippi governor said he was using his state constitutional authority to call a special session. Louisiana said they would immediately redraw maps. Right now, it's looking like Cleo Fields would retain his seat. Why Troy Carter would
lose his seat? Alabama is speaking up and they went into session yesterday. I want to roll the clip of the protests that happened outside because I don't want us to lose all of our hope we do.
What do we do? You run in a fun bank?
Thanks Now, last week the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Louisiana versus Klais. And while some may try to complicate it, we know what it is.
It is a strategic attempt to.
Erase the voting rights at which we know is our strongest protection against disenfranchisement, protections that were not given protection is that will vote for what here in Alabama.
And so the people don't tell the.
Truth that the decision opened the door of our house where politicians will try to redraw maps.
They gonna try, but the people ain't gonna let me.
So there is a protest outside of Alabama and today Tennessee because Tennessee is also called a special session. Tennessee's special session would eliminate the sole majority minority district there is in the whole state of Tennessee that represents Memphis. This is the scene outside of Tennessee State Legislature today.
He he, I think this.
Is so important because what this shows is a different type of solidarity. I would just want to take a moment to shout out all the white people. For everybody who's listening to the audio of this podcast, you didn't see, but there's lots of white people outside in Alabama and in Tennessee. I imagine they'll show up in Mississippi when it's time. I believe Louisiana protests for the most part, will be held tomorrow.
This is important, y'all. It is all hands on deck.
It's not just black people who will be impacted by the disenfranchisement of voters. There are brown people, there are Asian people, there are white people. Everyone who can't get an ID as they continue to change these laws. These folks are also impacted. So I want us to be mindful of a lot of that. Now, one other place that I want to go, and then we're going to end today because this is a deep dive type of a situation. There's so much here, Project twenty twenty five.
In Project twenty twenty five, there is an entire chapter on the Federal Elections Commission. The man who wrote that section, Nicholet's pull up the clip the headline, how Trump's Justice Department will achieve more honest elections Hans van Hans vond spacals.
Listen his name, I can't read it.
Hans von Spakkovski spec you guys, I should have got to phonetics. I'm sorry, I'll not have pronounce his name. Hey, how win his name anyway? Because I'm mad at him now. This man wrote a whole chapter in Project twenty twenty five about the various things that they could do to make.
It harder for people to vote.
One thing they talked about, according to a fact sheet from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Civil and Human Rights, is criminalizing the voting system. Project twenty twenty five would shift responsibility for prosecuting election related offenses from the Civil Rights Division to the Criminal Division. Nick, we can drop that headline if you want. They also talked about allowing the proliferation of online misinformation and disinformation relating to elections.
Project twenty twenty five would end ongoing federal efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to combat online disinformation. And we've seen that they have said that they are going to send ice to polling places, that they are going to have DHS working on investigations around voter fraud. That is not the purpose of the investigation's division at DHS. They also talk about in Project twenty twenty five requiring
state and local recipients of DHS. Again, that's the Department of Homeland Security grant funding to meet certain preconditions for eligibility, such as a commitment to total total information sharing, allowing access to Department of Motor Vehicle and voter registration databases, state run elections being intimidated by the Department of Homeland
Security for what purpose. Finally, Project twenty twenty five talks about federal agencies designated as voter registration agencies as Mission CREEP. They said that President Biden signing an executive order to provide spaces for voter registration inside agencies overstepped and even though it was designed to promote voter registration, they.
Thought it went too far.
Why because y'all we talk about this toxic, abusive relationship with this country. They want to select few to have political power. They want political power to belong in the hands of a select few, because they think if you lift up your voice, if you cast your vote, that they lose power. This is a power graph where racism is at the center and the heart of it, just like it was during Jim Crow, just like it was during the years in which our people were enslaved in
this country. So on this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this country, we have to do side what we actually stand for. We spend a lot of time and I talk about this in speeches all the time in the Declaration of Independence talking about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But there's another key element of what we are required to do based on what it says on paper, and that is if when the government no longer serves the interests of the people, we have the
right to alter or to abolish it. And I think we're getting pretty damn close to abolition. That is a place where my people have always found freedom. And again I said, I wasn't going to end with despair. So let me tell y'all from my chicken scratch. We had a mass meeting last week right on the other side of this court decision. The first thing that I'm going
to suggest, it's happening already. Shout out to the Legal Defense Fund that has a model bill for legislators to use to protect the civil rights.
Of our voting rights in states.
I would encourage state legislators, whether you think you're at risk or not, whether you live in a blue state, a red state, of purple state, I don't care if it's a green state, please introduce this measure as soon as you're able to file bills in the state legislature. You can go to naacp LDF dot org for more infrigantation on that bill.
Please file that right away.
Second, I'm encouraging clergy and our churches and our denominations.
And every other.
Place of religious worship. Please have a voter registration drive. Every single time your people are gathered register to vote. I know you're saying, why Angela reregistering the vote. When they're taking the right to vote away, I want to scare the hell out of them. They're busy scaring us. We need to register in mass every time you can. If you're in a sorority or fraternity and some other secret society, the Masons, whatever you are in, people to vote.
The next time y'all gather for a parade, a party, the club, the strip club, wherever it is, register people to vote. I know I started with the clergy and ended up at the strip club. I don't know how it happens. Blame it on add but register to vote anytime we are gathered, okay, where two or three are gathered, registered to vote. The third thing that I would suggest is that lawyers, you identify the plaintiffs who have been disenfranchised by the actions taken by these state legislators.
Legislators.
I know the Supreme Court is not on our side right now, but consciences can be shifted.
There's a speech from Reverend Jackson.
I didn't play that today, but I probably should have, where he talks about Rosa Parks was not on the right side of the law, but she was morally correct, and over times, over time, the politics shifted.
Fanny lou Hamer.
Was not on the side of the law, but she was morally right, and over time the politics shifted. We the people of conscience, have to shift the consciousness of this country.
We have always done that.
It is heavy labor, it is hard labor, but it's labor that we have to engage in.
No less.
The fourth thing that I will suggest shout out to my brothers, Vince Evans and Rashad Robinson who talked about the imperative nature of economic boycotts. Right now, there are companies that are headquartered in these states and they are turning a blind eye to this immoral activity, this illegal this illegal legislation that is being forced down the throats
of the people. It is time for economic boycott. When you look at what reverend when Reverend doctor Martin Luther King did as he was in Memphis when he was shot and killed. The day before he was shot and killed, he delivered a speech I've been to the mountaintop, and in that speech he talked about he literally calls out Reverend Jackson's name is a name and asked for the names of the corporations they are boycotting. At the time to stand in solidarity with the sanitation workers. We need
to do some of that. The fifth thing.
Labor all, our labor unions.
Just the other day they changed their actions for May Day, which was May first, to focus on voting rights. That cannot be the end of the matter, y'all. That was the beginning. What is our next action? We need to hear from our labor union brothers, sisters, and siblings. The sixth thing is this litigation, y'all, is not cheap. Support organizations like the NAACP, where I'm a lifetime member. Support organizations like NAACPLDA, where I've considered myself an honorary board member.
They are doing the work. There are several other organizations on the ground in Louisiana, in Tennessee, in Alabama.
Black voters matter, y'all. They are tired.
They need the support of the people in terms of boots on the ground and resources to fund this work. We've got to keep it going. In addition to that, the seventh thing is structural. We have to ensure structural change. I just talked about the right to alter or abolish it. Now is the time is my sister Latasha Brown said to fight for reparations. Now is the time for us to ensure that we expect and the court we see,
This Supreme Court is not on our side. It needs to be expanded to represent the minds in the hearts of the people in this country.
We need to abolish the electoral college.
You're talking about Louisiana, knowing that a third of the population is black, trying to dial us back to the three fifth Compromises seventeen eighty seven and say, actually, hold my beer, We're gonna take you down to one fifth. We don't need that type of representation. We want one person, one vote. We do not want you to speak for us. And then the final thing is we want to engage in a counter action on the fourth of July. Frederick Douglass once asked, what to the slave is the fourth
of July? And we got to ask the same question right now, y'all. In twenty twenty six, as we commemorate or they commemorate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this country, what do we want this country to be on the.
Fourth of July this year?
I want all of us outside to hit the streets to reimagine a country that would actually meet our needs that would actually serve our people. That isn't just asking and clamoring for a vote, but ensures that people all over the country, regardless of their zip code, have clean drinking water, are paid a livable wage, live in a home where they feel safe, can feed their families, can afford healthcare, can afford to see the doctor proactively, not just when something is wrong. That is the country we
need to fight for. That is what we need to go and hit the streets for on the fourth of July. So let us begin our counter actions right now to celebrating this country. I'm not celebrating where we are. It's a crying shame where we are. We are living in a nightmare. This is not the American dream. So let us on the fourth establish the dream that we seek. Become the people that we know we have the right in every We owe our ancestors to becoming we owe
future generations to becoming those people. So yes, the right to vote is sacred. The right to exist is so much more sacred. We've got to fight for both. I would say happy birthday to America, but America is not showing me it's best life.
Right now, We'll come home, y'all.
Mister Chairman, and to the Credentials Committee. My name is missus Fanny lou Hamer.
That was the thirty first of.
August in nineteen sixty two, that eighteen of us traveled twenty six miles to the county courthouse in Indonola to try to register to become first class citizens. We was met in Indonola by policeman highway patrolums and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test at the time. After we had taken this test and started back to Rouseville, we were held up by the city police and the state highway patrolers and carried back to Indonola while the bus driver was charged that day
of driving a bus the wrong color. After we paid the fine among us, we continued on to Rooseville and Reverend Jess Funny carried me four miles in the rural area where I had worked as a timekeeper and sharecropper for eighteen years. I was met there by my children that told me the plantation owner was angry because I
had gone down tried to register. After they told him, my husband came and said the plantation owner was raising kane because I had tried to register, and before he quit talking, the plantation owner came and said, Fanny Luda, you know, did Pap tell you what I said? And I said yes, sir. He said, well, I mean that said if you don't go down and withdraw your registration, you'll have to leave. Said then if you go down and withdrawal so you still might have to go to court.
We are not ready for.
That in Mississippi. And I addressed him and told him that I didn't try to register for you. I tried to register for myself. I had to leave that same night. On the tenth of September nineteen sixty two, sixteen bullets were siding to the home of mister and missus Robert Tucker for me. That same night two girls were shot
in Rouseville, Mississippi. Also, mister Joe mc donald's house was shot in and June the ninth, nineteen sixty three, I had attendant of voter registration workshop was returning back to Mississiptts ten of us was chalned by the conton little trailway bus when we got to wine on A, Mississippi, which is Montgomery County four. The people got off to use the washroom and two of the people to use the restaurant. Two of the people wanted to use the washing.
The fall people that had gone in to use the restaurant was all and out during this time.
Out of the hearing have been hearing testimony by Mississipanni ul Kimber, who was a candidate for Congress number in the second District of Mississippi and the Democratic Crime where she lost. She said to testify for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
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