[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 57 (Monday, March 31, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H1362-H1366]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FIGHTING VOTER SUPPRESSION

  (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Ms. 
McClellan of Virginia was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of 
the minority leader.)


                             General Leave

  Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to 
include any extraneous material on the subject this Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today 
to co-anchor the CBC Special Order hour along with my distinguished 
colleague, the legend,   James Clyburn.
  For the next 60 minutes, members of the CBC have an opportunity to 
speak directly to the American people on voting rights, specifically 
fighting voter suppression, an issue of great importance to the 
Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, the constituents we represent, 
and all Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Constitution created a government by, of, and 
for We the People. As a child, I often reflected on exactly what that 
meant. What that means is that it is a government that reflects the 
perspective of and, therefore, meets the needs of the people who 
participate. However, for most of our country's history in the 
beginning, only White, landowning men could vote.
  That was changed in 1870 when the 15th Amendment opened the door for 
Black men to vote by prohibiting the Federal Government and States from 
denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote on the account of race, 
color, or previous condition of servitude.
  During Reconstruction, formerly enslaved and free Black men voted and 
got elected to office. When Reconstruction ended, though, the former 
Confederate States passed new constitutions, including such things as 
literacy tests, poll taxes, and felony disenfranchisement. In the words 
of E. Carter Glass in the Virginia constitutional convention of 1902, 
he said these were intended to ``eliminate the darky'' as a factor in 
politics.
  They made no bones about what they were doing.
  Glass told his fellow convention delegates: ``This plan of popular 
suffrage will eliminate the darky as a political factor in this State 
in less than 5 years, so that in no single county in the Commonwealth 
will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the 
White race in the affairs government.
  Next to this achievement in vital consequence will be the inability 
of unworthy men of our own race to cheat their way into prominence.''
  This was the first great backlash in American history to making 
progress toward making the ideals of upon which our country was founded 
true for everyone.
  Enter my own family history. My great-grandfather in Alabama around 
the same time had to take a literacy test in order to be able to 
register to vote. In this literacy test he was asked questions like: 
How many bubbles are in a bar of soap? And many other nonsensical 
questions that the person giving the literacy test could change the 
answer to based on who was answering the questions.
  However, my great-grandfather was a community leader and teacher. He 
got all the questions right, and the registrar turned to his assistant 
and said a word I will never say other than in a direct quote: ``I need 
more questions because this nigger got them all right.''
  My great-grandfather got the next set of questions right. Then he was 
told: You must find three White men to vouch for your character to be 
able to register to vote. After much effort, he did it, and he voted in 
every election since.
  Now, the second great backlash occurred after the efforts of men like 
Dr. King; our former colleague, John Lewis; and members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus like Mr. Clyburn. Because of the Voting 
Rights Act, many of the things that my family suffered went away, like 
the poll tax.
  Mr. Speaker, when I took my oath of office on this floor 2 years ago, 
I took my oath of office on my father's Bible. It was an old, tattered 
Bible from the 1940s. I didn't understand why he wouldn't get a new 
one. Often as we got to the anniversary of my father's passing I would 
look through his Bible. On January 5, 2021, he was on my mind as 
Georgia elected the first Black Senator. I opened the Bible, and an 
envelope fell out I had never noticed, and inside was his poll tax 
receipt from when he first registered to vote. Then I understood: He 
kept it in his Bible to remind him of the sacred right of the right to 
vote. He kept this Bible even when we tried to give him new ones. This 
was the one he used to write his sermons every Sunday.
  Now, the 24th Amendment banned poll taxes like my father and my 
grandfather had to pay, but my mother was not able to vote until after 
the voting rights of 1965 passed. Now, Mr. Speaker, I tell this story 
because I daresay every member of the Congressional Black Caucus has a 
story or two or several in their family. In fact, some members of the 
CBC themselves have these stories, as you will probably hear.
  All of this effort culminated in the Voting Rights Act that had an 
immediate impact on expanding the ability and the participation of 
Black Americans to vote until the Supreme Court gutted it in Shelby v. 
Holder because it said that Congress had not created enough of a record 
to show that voter suppression still existed on the basis of race.
  However, just like those delegates in the 1902 Virginia convention, 
who, when asked: Well, when we give these literacy tests, how will we 
know if we don't explicitly say that it is on the basis of race?
  Those delegates had an answer. They knew it would be up to the person 
implementing the literacy test, just like with my great-grandfather, to 
determine whether the questions were right or wrong and if they 
answered enough.
  Now, Congress has failed to restore the provisions that were gutted 
in the Voting Rights Act, and as a result, we have seen a wave of laws 
across the country, particularly in the South, throwing up barriers in 
the way of voting. This is the latest voter suppression in the backlash 
to progress.

  Moreover, now our President issued an executive order I believe last 
week, and on the floor of this body this week, we will have Jim Crow 
2.0, the poll tax of 2025, the SAVE Act, the requirement

[[Page H1363]]

that every American citizen prove their citizenship.
  Mr. Speaker, why is that a poll tax you might ask?
  It is because the only documents allowed to prove your citizenship, 
other than a military ID, costs money. I will give you some examples. 
The Real ID costs about $42. These are all numbers that I have gotten 
based on research in either my State or federally.
  A passport costs $130. A birth certificate from a State agency is $12 
in Virginia. A consular report of birth abroad is $100. A certificate 
of citizenship is $1,385.
  Whether it was $2.12 that my father paid in 1947 or $1,385 that 
someone has to pay for a certificate of citizenship, it is a poll tax. 
It is illegal under our Constitution, and it is an effort at voter 
suppression.
  Mr. Speaker, for women, we just heard as we celebrate the final day 
of Women's History Month, if your name is not the same today as on your 
birth certificate, then you need a document to show the chain of 
custody of your name. That is more money, that is more obstacles, that 
is more hoops to jump through, and that is more voter suppression. The 
Congressional Black Caucus will not stand silently by and watch it 
happen.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Clyburn).
  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me, 
and I thank her so much for leading this Special Order hour.
  Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleague from Virginia to express my 
disagreement with the misplaced priorities of the Republican majority. 
The American people have made clear that they want their elected 
leaders to be focused on improving the economy and lowering costs.
  In this area, by any measure, the Trump administration and the 
Republican majorities here in Congress are off to a very poor start. 
Projected economic growth is down along with Americans' 401(k)'s. 
Inflation and expectations for inflation in the coming months are up. 
Last week, discussing the release of higher-than-expected inflation 
data, one economic analyst observed ``the preliminary signs of 
stagflation pressures.''
  Now, I am old enough to remember the stagflation of the 1970s: low 
growth combined with high inflation. It was devastating then, and it 
would be devastating now. Unsurprisingly, consumer sentiment is down 
substantially.
  Much of this economic weakness is the result of the Trump 
administration's reckless, indiscriminate, and nonstrategic tariffs, 
which are expected to raise costs for Americans trying to make ends 
meet.
  To take one example, The Washington Post reported that the recently 
announced tariffs on automobiles are likely to raise prices most 
significantly for the most affordable cars.
  The President, however, when asked over the weekend about automobile 
price increases replied: ``I couldn't care less.''
  The Secretary of the Treasury from my home State of South Carolina 
was doing quite well financially as a hedge fund manager doesn't think 
the American people care either. To quote him: ``Access to cheap goods 
is not the essence of the American Dream.''

                              {time}  2000

  Clearly, Mr. Trump and Mr. Bessent have never struggled to make ends 
meet from paycheck to paycheck and appear to view those who do with 
disdain.
  With our Nation's economy in such a precarious state and 2 weeks of 
session left before a 2-week recess, is the Republican majority taking 
urgent action to bolster Americans' finances, boost growth, and restore 
confidence? Regrettably, they are not.
  Instead, among other ill-advised items, they are tackling the so-
called problem of noncitizens voting, which is already illegal. I say 
so-called problem because the Bipartisan Policy Center's analysis of 
The Heritage Foundation database--I repeat, a Heritage Foundation 
database--found just 77 instances of noncitizen voting between 1999 and 
2023. That is 77 instances out of hundreds of millions of votes cast 
over a 25-year period.
  The Bipartisan Policy Center goes on to say: ``Illegal voting, 
including by noncitizens, is routinely investigated and prosecuted by 
the appropriate authorities, and there is no evidence that noncitizen 
voting has ever been significant enough to impact an election's 
outcome.'' That is from The Heritage Foundation.
  If my Republican colleagues are truly concerned about the illegal 
overturning of election outcomes, they should work to prevent a repeat 
of the current President's attempt to overturn the 2020 election, which 
culminated in the deadly attack on this building on January 6, 2021. 
They shouldn't waste the House's time on this legislation.
  Worse than a waste of time, the bill being brought to the floor this 
week would disenfranchise eligible citizens by imposing onerous 
requirements that many could not meet.
  For example, as you just heard, married women who have changed their 
last names could not use their birth certificates with their maiden 
names as proof of citizenship. Neither could those born to military 
parents stationed abroad.
  While many of my Republican colleagues may be globetrotting jet-
setters, many of my constituents in South Carolina don't have 
passports. A $100 passport fee is a lot of money for many people in my 
district--in this case, an exorbitant poll tax.
  This bill is only the latest Republican attempt to erect barriers to 
the ballot box, following recent attempts to make it more difficult to 
vote by mail or by ballot drop boxes. Just last week, the President 
signed a sweeping executive order with several onerous provisions that 
would risk disenfranchising millions of Americans.
  Democratic bills, like the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement 
Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, would stop these attacks on our 
democracy and ensure every American is able to cast a meaningful vote.
  Mr. Speaker, when the American economy is on the precipice, why are 
my Republican colleagues focused on making it more difficult to vote?
  While I possess no special insight into their motivations, I would 
argue that the two are connected. Republicans don't want to face 
democratic accountability for their governing failures, so they are 
trying to curb the electoral power of the struggling Americans who 
their destructive economic agenda is harming the most.
  I am a little bit of a student of history. What we are seeing right 
now evokes the dark periods of the late 1800s.
  During the gilded age, low-income Black and White Americans across 
the South came together in pursuit of economic justice. The economic 
power structure responded not by expanding economic opportunities but 
by restricting the right to vote. The result was Jim Crow 1.0, which 
deprived generations of African Americans of the right to vote, the 
right to choose leaders who could ease their economic burdens and 
expand opportunities for their families.
  Mr. Speaker, after these Supreme Court interpretations and these 
actions by these southern legislatures, let me tell you what happened 
in South Carolina. When more than 50 percent of the population was 
African American, they had zero representation here in the Congress. In 
fact, the last African American left Congress in 1897, and there was 
not another African American in this body until I took the oath of 
office 95 years later. That is what happened with Jim Crow 1.0, and 
what we are seeing happening now is Jim Crow 2.0.
  I am very fond of quoting George Santayana's admonition: Those who do 
not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
  I worry that we are dangerously close to repeating this democratic 
decline amidst economic disruption. However, heeding the lessons of 
history, I believe there is still time to prevent it.
  As we fight against Republican attempts to diminish our democracy, 
like the bill on the floor this week, we must deploy this democracy to 
demand that they address the issues people actually care about. We must 
make our voices heard on this floor, at townhalls, over the phone, at 
peaceful protests, and at the ballot box.
  We must make clear that Republicans must stop the Trump agenda of 
economic destruction. They must take action to lower costs. They must 
abandon their efforts to take healthcare

[[Page H1364]]

away from millions to fund tax cuts for billionaires.
  It is early in this fight, but our initial efforts are starting to 
yield results. Republicans fear for their majority, and they should. It 
is my hope that this fear will prompt my Republican colleagues to 
rethink their agenda for purposes of electoral self-preservation. If 
they fail to do so, the American people, as has happened before, will 
rightfully rethink who they elect so that we can preserve our economy 
and our democracy.
  I will close, Mr. Speaker, with a little story from the 1950s. I 
graduated high school in 1957. As I was about to graduate, one of my 
teachers assigned me an essay to write. The essay was simply to share 
what I wanted to do after graduation, which was 3 months away.
  When I wrote the essay, she came to me several days later and told me 
that she had read my essay and was very disappointed in what I wrote. I 
thought she had problems with the style, or maybe I didn't get the 
subjects and verbs to agree.

  When I went into her office, she said to me she was disappointed 
because I said in my essay that, upon graduating high school, I would 
be leaving my native South Carolina, and I wrote why. It was because I 
was a college student, and when my parents got the right to cast an 
effective vote--both of them college graduates--the Democratic primary 
in South Carolina was a private club, a White-only private club.
  These were the kinds of laws that came out of the Slaughter-House 
Cases and Plessy v. Ferguson, the same kind of laws that are being 
signaled now in the Supreme Court in the Shelby v. Holder decision. 
Just read it and you will see that what Justice Roberts wrote in that 
decision could have been lifted from those decisions of the 1870s. Jim 
Crow 2.0 is upon us.
  Mr. Speaker, that bill is coming to this floor. If that bill is 
passed by this body, we will be taking another step toward 
disenfranchising people going forward.
  It is a sin and a shame that this body in this year will initiate the 
opportunity to turn the clock back to revisit those years that we 
thought were gone by.
  As we face this great threat to our economy and our democracy, I 
would hope that we will get a spine, that we will exert the authority 
of this body, and that we will say to anybody, in low places or high 
places, that we will not turn the clock back.
  Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Mr. Clyburn for his 
remarks.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell).

                              {time}  2015

  Ms. SEWELL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to join my CBC colleagues in getting 
into some good trouble as we voice our very strong opposition to the 
Republicans' voter suppression bill, the so-called SAVE Act.
  As a daughter of Selma and the Representative of Alabama's civil 
rights district, the fight for voting rights is very personal to me. It 
was in Selma 60 years ago where John Lewis and hundreds of foot 
soldiers were bludgeoned on the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the equal 
right of every American to vote. The legislation before us makes a 
mockery of that legacy.
  Since his defeat in the 2020 election, President Donald Trump and his 
Republican allies have pushed the big lie of a stolen election. The 
majority has tried to convince the American people of the lie that 
noncitizens are a threat to our elections and are using that lie as an 
excuse to pass a new law, such as the SAVE Act, which would make it 
harder for millions of Americans to cast their ballots.
  Mr. Speaker, the facts are clear: It is already illegal for 
noncitizens to vote in Federal elections, or in any elections. In fact, 
under current law, noncitizens would face up to 5 years in prison for 
attempting to vote in Federal elections and would even risk being 
deported.
  In reality, this legislation would purge thousands of eligible voters 
from the rolls. It would create significant barriers for the 69 million 
women who currently are married and changed their last names so that 
their birth certificates do not match their marriage certificates. 
Thus, it would be harder for these almost 70 million women to vote.
  The 140 million Americans who do not have a passport and those with 
military IDs and Tribal IDs, none of which would be able to prove their 
birth citizenship, are not included in the bill as proper forms of ID 
that will allow someone to show their citizenship.
  Americans should see this bill for what it is: a cynical attempt to 
flame the fire of false voter fraud by the same extremist who brought 
us the January 6 insurrection.
  Their objective of suppressing the vote was made even more clear last 
week, Mr. Speaker, when President Trump signed an executive order to 
erode voting rights and gave Elon Musk, an unelected, unconfirmed 
person, the right to access Americans' personal voter information.
  Mr. Speaker, as elected officials in this House, we should be 
fighting to protect and expand access to the ballot box, not restrict 
it. As old battles have become new again, we in the Congressional Black 
Caucus have remained committed to ensuring and defending the sacred 
right to vote. This right to vote was won with blood, sweat, tears, and 
even deaths. We in the Congressional Black Caucus see voting rights as 
our North Star.
  Mr. Speaker, we will not stop fighting as long as President Trump and 
Elon Musk and House Republicans are trying to take away our sacred 
right to vote.
  I urge all of my colleagues to not only vote ``no'' on the SAVE Act, 
but to do so with vigor and with purpose.
  It was John Lewis who said that ours is not the struggle of 1 day, 1 
week, 1 year. Ours is a struggle of a lifetime. As long as the 
Congressional Black Caucus, 63 Members strong, is in this Congress, we 
will stand up and protect the right of every American to vote, and we 
will stop efforts like the SAVE Act.
  The SAVE Act is not there to save election integrity. The SAVE Act is 
all about saving Republican seats and Republican elected officials. We 
will be voting ``no'' on that bill when it comes to the floor, and we 
urge our other colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. McClellan) 
for leading this Special Order hour. We in the Congressional Black 
Caucus stand on the shoulders of giants. It is now time for us to get 
off of their shoulders and to do our own work, and our own work, we 
will do in defeating the SAVE Act and for standing up for the legacy of 
John Lewis and those foot soldiers who marched on a bridge in my 
hometown for the equal right of every American to vote. As long as we 
have a voice, the CBC will be standing up for voting rights.
  Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the honorable gentlewoman from 
Alabama (Ms. Sewell) for her remarks.
  Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield to the honorable 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson).
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Congresswoman for 
her leadership and her stewardship. I thank the body for convening 
during this very special hour.
  Democracy is on trial this week.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight with a fervor and the burden of history 
on all of our backs. The question is: Do we go forward in faith, or do 
we go backwards in despair?
  I rise tonight not just for myself as a legislator, but for all of 
those who never made it to this mike, for all of those who did not have 
the opportunity to be viewed as full human beings in our great country, 
for those who marched in the dust, for those who bled on the bridges, 
for those who faced the dogs and the batons right here in the United 
States of America, for those who met the fire hoses just to try to 
claim their right to vote.
  Mr. Speaker, both of my grandfathers served in World War II. 
Oftentimes, when I look at Union Station, I remember that my 
grandfather, having fought the Nazis in World War II, coming back to 
the United States and into Washington, D.C., he had to leave the first-
class train car as a soldier and go into the back because he was 
considered a Negro, a colored man. Nazi POWs went to the first-class 
train car as they headed back toward South Carolina.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today because the right to vote, the crown jewel 
of our

[[Page H1365]]

democracy, is under attack again. We have seen this play out before, 
and we know how it ends if we don't act. Tonight, I say: We have come 
too far and there is too many to go back in time again.
  In 1965, a year before I was born, after 346 years, African Americans 
were finally given full citizenship with that crown jewel of the Voting 
Rights Act.

  I am 59 years of age. I am the first generation in my family, all 
born in America--all born in America--who has full equal rights. In my 
lifetime, at the age of 59, my children will have fewer rights than I 
have had. Those are troubling signs.
  In 1965, the Voting Rights Act became the law of the land. It was 
signed in blood and baptized by the courage of men and women who dared 
to believe in something better. Selma gave us the foot soldiers, 
Montgomery gave us the movement, and the movement gave us the right to 
vote.
  Yet, here we are in 2025, and it feels like we are back at square 
one. This week, the President signed an executive order requiring proof 
of citizenship to vote in Federal elections. He cut off mail-in ballots 
unless they arrive on time as he cuts the postal workforce. He says 
that you cannot have ballots that don't arrive on the day of.
  Mr. Speaker, ignoring the rural voters, the disabled voters, the 
traveling soldiers and our veterans, if your State does not comply, he 
threatens to take away your funding. How is the President expanding 
democracy? He is asphyxiating our body politics.
  This is not policy. This is punishment. This is not democracy. This 
is deception. That is suppression dressed in a suit and tie.
  Don't be fooled by the language. Republicans call it election 
security. Jim Crow has had a way of cleaning up vile and vitriolic 
racist words, but I have lived long enough to know that when they say, 
``security,'' what they actually mean is ``selectivity.'' When they 
say, ``integrity,'' what they actually mean is ``inequality.''
  Let me be clear. We don't have a voter fraud problem in this country. 
We have a voter suppression crisis. We have polling places shutting 
down in Black neighborhoods. We have long lines in indigenous 
communities that stretch around the corner and throughout the night. We 
have purges, ID laws, and maps drawn to divide rather than to unite.
  Mr. Speaker, we have courts gutting the Civil Rights Act, statehouses 
cooking up new restrictions, and a President threatening to override 
the will of the people with the stroke of a pen.
  Mr. Speaker, that is not justice. That is regression. That is going 
in reverse. We don't want to go back. We are not going back. We won't 
go back to a time when folks had to count jellybeans in jars to prove 
they were American enough.
  We won't go back to a time when the color of your skin determined the 
weight of your ballot or your opportunity to have a ballot in your 
hand. We won't go back to a time when power was hoarded by the few and 
denied to the many. We are marching forward with ballots, not bullets; 
love, not fear; and with hope, not hate.
  When you suppress the vote, you suppress the American Dream. You 
suppress the worker, the teacher, the farm laborer, the preacher, the 
nurse, the single mom juggling three jobs just to make it to election 
day. You suppress the very soul of our democracy.
  Mr. Speaker, some would say order is needed. Let me say something 
about order. There is no order without justice, and there is no justice 
when you erect barriers to silence people instead of listening to them.
  We need access. We need more access, not less. We need more voices, 
not fewer. We need to make voting easier, not harder; more joyful, not 
more burdensome; and more sacred, not more cynical.
  Mr. Speaker, this Congress must not wait another day. We must pass 
the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore what the 
Supreme Court gutted when it ripped out preclearance. We must pass the 
Freedom to Vote Act to guarantee that every citizen, no matter the ZIP 
Code that they live in, their income, or ancestry, can register, vote, 
and be counted with dignity.
  We must defend the courts and protect the power of judges to stop 
injustice before it spreads and metastasizes because, if we silence the 
judiciary, we silence the law.
  While we legislate, we must also organize. We must educate. We must 
inspire new generations who understand the vote not just as a right, 
but as a duty, as a voice, as a weapon of choice, and a peace 
instrument in our long fight and struggle for its freedom and total 
emancipation.
  We must keep people marching in the streets for those who marched 
before us and those continuing and coming behind.
  We must keep dreaming for a democracy big enough for all of us, not 
just for a favored few.
  We must keep building the more perfect union that the Framers spoke 
out about but never completed.
  Mr. Speaker, tonight, in the spirit of Fannie Lou Hamer and Medgar 
Evers--Fannie Lou Hamer said she was sick and tired of being sick and 
tired. I know some people are asking why we are relitigating this 
again.
  Some people who are male and White have all of the privileges. Some 
people think democracy began in 1776, when only White male landowners 
had the right to vote. We have been a work in progress, and God is not 
finished with it yet.
  I speak for Medgar Evers and Malcolm and Martin and for the people in 
line in church basements, gymnasiums, and mobile vans who believe in 
this country even when this country forgot about them.
  They are watching as we march. History is watching us. The past is 
listening.
  The future is haunting. The world is watching to see if America is 
still what it claims to be. Let us not fail the moment. Let us be 
worthy of the dream and our ideals. Let us not be thick on deeds and 
thin on action.
  Let us be worthy of the dream and aspire to live up to the words of 
our Constitution. Let us protect the vote, not for ourselves but for 
all those who cannot be in this Chamber, who are counting on us to 
speak truth to power, pass laws, and lead with love. The vote is power. 
The vote is our voice.
  The vote is sacred, and I will not rest until every hand that reaches 
for a ballot is met with a promise, not with a barrier.

                              {time}  2030

  Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for 
his remarks.
  Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Virginia has 16 minutes 
remaining.
  Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana, 
Mr. Cleo Fields.
  Mr. FIELDS. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentlewoman from Virginia 
and the gentleman from South Carolina for organizing this Special Order 
at a very important time.
  Before the 14th Amendment, I was considered three-fifths of a man. It 
was not until 1870, through the ratification of the 15th Amendment, 
that I received the right to vote. It wasn't until 1920, through the 
passage of the 19th Amendment, that women received the right to vote.
  Despite all men and women having the full Federal right to vote by 
1920, States still devised schemes to impose draconian restrictions to 
prevent voter registration for people of color.
  These restrictions were Jim Crow laws. I never understood it, but in 
1988, when I ran for office for the first time, I wanted my grandmother 
to vote for me. I was leading folk to the polls to register to vote, 
and I tried to get my grandmother to go. I said, ``Grandmother, why in 
the world would you not go to vote for your grandson?'' She said to me, 
``Sit down, son. Let me just tell you a story.'' She went to register 
to vote, and they gave her a literacy test. She had to state the 
preamble to the Constitution, my grandmother, in Louisiana.
  I finally got her to register to vote, and she voted until she 
passed.
  They gave them tests like citizen tests, voucher tests. They had to 
get other people to vouch for them. In Louisiana, we had something 
called all-White primaries, which meant Blacks could not even vote in 
primary elections.
  One of the first successes we have had in the battle of voting rights 
was

[[Page H1366]]

in 1944 with the Supreme Court decision of Smith v. Allwright when they 
outlawed White-only primaries.
  Following this decision, Black voter registration went up. It moved 
from 1,000 in 1944 to 120,000 in 1952 and 160,000 in 1956.
  Despite some legal progress, Jim Crow laws were still alive and well 
in Southern States. Substantial progress was made through the Voting 
Rights Act of 1956, 1957, and 1960, which authorized the United States 
Attorney General to file lawsuits on behalf of Americans who were 
denied the right to vote and gave them the ability to investigate 
threats on civil rights.
  A watershed moment occurred when we passed the 1964 Voting Rights Act 
and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which made Jim Crow practices and 
discrimination illegal. Thank God for subsection 5. I will take a 
moment of personal privilege to talk about that subsection because it 
really affected me.
  Every law that was passed in my State of Louisiana had to be 
precleared by the Justice Department, and then there was a challenge to 
that, Shelby v. Holder.
  Every progress we have made, all the sacrifices all the leaders have 
made, like John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Shirley Chisholm, and Jesse 
Jackson, they kept making these pushes because they knew it was a hard 
time for people.
  Lastly, let me just tell you, these State laws are real. Last year, I 
served as a member of the Louisiana State Senate, and several attempts 
were made to make it more difficult on a State level for people to 
register to vote: S. 226 dealt with absentee ballots, and it required 
you to put your mother's maiden name on your voter application or your 
vote would be thrown out. S. 218 prohibits individuals from assisting 
elderly people in registering to vote.
  I say to you, Mr. Speaker, Congress should advance legislation like 
the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote 
Act to increase equal access across the voting ballot.
  Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand here as I started, the great-granddaughter of 
Henry David Davidson, who had to take a literacy test and find three 
White men to vouch for him to be able to register to vote in 1902.
  I stand here the daughter and granddaughter of two men named James 
Fennimore McClellan, who had to pay poll taxes to be able to register 
to vote.
  I stand here the daughter of Lois McClellan, the first woman in her 
family who was able to vote when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was 
passed in her thirties.
  I took my oath of office on the Bible in which my father kept this 
poll tax receipt to remind me that I owe it to them to fight for the 
sacred right to vote.
  I stand here as the first Black woman elected to Congress from 
Virginia. Virginia is the birthplace of American democracy, but her 
labor was long and her birthing pains deep; the home of the first 
representative democracy in the Western Hemisphere where only White 
land-owning men could vote; the home, the birthplace, of American 
slavery; and the birthplace of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that all men 
are created equal and endowed by their creator with the unalienable 
rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He excluded 
nearly half a million enslaved men and women, indeed, all the women who 
resided in the Thirteen Colonies, including in his beloved Monticello.
  The Delegates to the Continental Congress ignored Abigail Adams' plea 
to ``remember the ladies and be [kinder] to them than your ancestors.''
  Virginia is the birthplace of James Madison, who was the architect of 
the Virginia Plan that created a Constitution and a government by, of, 
and for the people in order to form a more perfect Union.
  Not only did they not remember the ladies, but they considered the 
enslaved people who served them every day to be three-fifths of a 
person for purposes of this body, apportionment, and taxation, and they 
excluded indigenous people altogether.

  Since 1789, the story of America has been one of each generation 
trying to make true for all Americans the promise of our founding 
documents. It is a story of cyclical trauma as the Civil War tore this 
country apart; Reconstruction sought to bind its wounds; and a violent 
backlash of white supremacy erased the gains made by formerly enslaved 
men, like my predecessor John Mercer Langston, the first Black man to 
serve in this body from Virginia.
  It is a story of persistence, the persistence of women forcing a seat 
at the table of democracy and bringing a folding chair like Shirley 
Chisholm when they weren't let in. It is a story of the Federal 
Government advancing, retreating, advancing, and retreating in the 
battle to protect every American citizen's right to vote.
  We are in the backlash right now that we have seen to that progress, 
and I stand here with my father's poll tax receipt behind me to remind 
me: We cannot go back. We cannot go back to a time when, in the name of 
voter integrity, barriers are put in people's way, poll taxes are put 
in people's way, and the requirement to pay money to prove you have the 
right to vote is imposed on American citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, I am tired. I am tired of fighting the same fights as my 
parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents, but I fight those 
fights as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, the conscience of 
the Congress, from a position of more power and strength than they ever 
dreamed. I fight those fights so that our children and grandchildren 
don't have to.
  I implore this body not to take a giant step back by imposing Jim 
Crow 2.0 and a poll tax through the SAVE Act or the President's 
executive order.
  The right to vote is sacred. We will defend it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Crank). Members are reminded to refrain 
from engaging in personalities toward the President.

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