FIGHTING BACK AGAINST DISMANTLING OF VOTING RIGHTS

On 2026-06-04, Representative Adelita S. Grijalva (D-AZ-7) delivered a floor speech titled "FIGHTING BACK AGAINST DISMANTLING OF VOTING RIGHTS" in the House.

FIGHTING BACK AGAINST DISMANTLING OF VOTING RIGHTS

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 95 (Thursday, June 4, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 95 (Thursday, June 4, 2026)] [House] [Pages H3898-H3902] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] FIGHTING BACK AGAINST DISMANTLING OF VOTING RIGHTS (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Jackson of Illinois was recognized for half the time until 10 p.m. as the designee of the minority leader.) General Leave Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material into the Record. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Downing). Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Illinois? There was no objection. Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their presence. Mr. Speaker, I ask the question: Which side of history are you standing on? Now, some of you are here because you want to be here. Some of you are here simply because you walked past this floor to get somewhere else. Either way, God has a plan, and that plan today is that you are going to hear the truth because this is a Special Order hour, and the order I have been given not by the Speaker of this House but by God, who made us all equal in his eyes, through this Republic, has never fully agreed and understood by all Members of this body that we have the right to stand in this well on the floor of the people's House and ask every Member of this body a question that cannot be avoided. It cannot be postponed, and it cannot be answered with procedural language or partisan talking points. The question is this: On the eve of America's 250th birthday, which side of history are you standing for? Now, I want you to notice something. In a few weeks, this Nation is going to celebrate. There are going to be parades. There are going to be speeches. They are going to have fireworks that light up the skies from sea to shining sea. Politicians on both sides of this aisle are going to stand at podiums and invoke the Founding Fathers and speak about liberty and justice and the greatest democracy the world has ever seen. I want to ask you, gently, at first: What democracy are you talking about because I know my history, and I was born in this country, and I have read the documents. The democracy that we are celebrating this summer, the democracy of 1776, did not include me or my ancestors, did not include my grandmother or my great-grandparents, did not include my great-great- grandmother who was somebody's property under the law of this land. It did not include the millions and millions of women and children who built this country's wealth with their bodies and their blood and their genius and were given in return not citizenship but chains. {time} 2030 In 1776, it was not a democracy. In 1787, it was not a democracy. They counted us as three-fifths of a human being to give slaveholders more power in this very Congress. In 1865, it was not a democracy. We got the 13th Amendment and got the Black codes in the same season. In 1868, it was not a democracy. The 14th Amendment was ratified while African Americans and elected officials were being murdered across the South. In 1870, it was not a democracy. The 15th Amendment was passed, and within 10 years, the Supreme Court had gutted its enforcement, and the Redeemers had taken back the South at the point of a rifle. In 1920, our country was not a democracy. Women got the right to vote, but most Black women in the South could not exercise it. America did not overcome. By any honest definition, it was not a democracy in this country until August 6, 1965, the day that President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, the day that this Nation finally, after 189 years of claiming to believe in democracy, extended a meaningful, enforceable, protected right to vote to all of its citizens regardless of race, 189 years in the making. Let that sink into your spirit: 189 years of fireworks, 189 years of founding myths. ``We the people,'' it was said, and not one day of actual democracy for the people who look like me. I am 60 years of age. I was born in 1966. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed. I am the first generation of Americans ever born with equal rights under the law of this land. My generation is the first in 250 years. We are the first, 60 years of age. If that doesn't disturb you, if that doesn't shake something in your soul, if you can hear that and feel nothing, then I want to suggest respectfully that something has gone wrong, something has gone morally numb. Now, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, has gutted section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, has taken the spine out of the only serious legal protection that Blacks, Mexicans, women, and others have had since 1965. It has done, with legal language and constitutional reasoning, what the White Citizens' Council and the Ku Klux Klan used to do with economic pressure and shotguns. They have changed the method. They have not changed the mission. Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege and pleasure to yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia), one of the leading outstanding voices for human rights and democracy in the United States of America and my colleague and friend. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be joined by the first Mexican American to serve in the United States House of Representatives from the entire Midwest. He has fought for the rights and well-being of his constituents and all Americans for decades. I am honored to yield to the gentleman, the first person of Mexican-American ancestry to serve in the House of Representatives from the State of Illinois, the Honorable Congressman Mr. Chuy Garcia. Mr. GARCIA of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Jackson for leading this Special Order hour for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, shining a spotlight on the Voting Rights Act, progress that has been made, and, most importantly, efforts to dismantle it and disenfranchise millions of people across the land and undermine our democracy. Let me share a personal story. I arrived in the United States in 1965, the same year the Voting Rights Act was passed. I was a little boy from Durango, Mexico. I didn't speak a word of English, let alone know about the Constitution or the Founding Fathers, but I understood one thing: My parents believed in this country and brought me to this country because they knew that we could do better and that we could pursue our dream of a better life in America. Years later, I became a citizen. The Voting Rights Act gave me the opportunity I never dreamed possible: running for office. It was not because power invited me in, but because people in my community organized. We built power and exercised our right to vote. That is the magic of the Voting Rights Act. [[Page H3899]] Yet, it is precisely why Republicans have been working for decades to weaken our voting rights. When our opponents recently broke Black neighborhoods in Memphis into pieces, they knew exactly what they were doing. In Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana, getting rid of majority Black districts isn't accidental, either. Heading to Court to make section 2 of the Voting Rights Act weaker, it is deliberate, and when Republicans push a bill that prevents married women from voting over name changes and restricts some eligible voters, that is their plan. This is not election integrity. It is Klan tactics in a business suit, the Jim Crow school of law. They do not say ``literacy test'' anymore. They say: Bring us new paperwork. They don't say ``Whites only'' anymore. They say: Race neutral. To them, fair means our communities can contribute to society by working and paying taxes, but we are not worthy enough to elect our own Representatives. It also means that you can pack, slice, and scatter Black and Latino voters, as long as those calling the shots label it smart politics. Chicago's Latino community waited decades for real representation in Congress. The Fourth Congressional District of Illinois became the first Latino-majority congressional district in the Midwest because the Voting Rights Act had teeth and because our communities refused to disappear. The only thing that they wanted was a level playing field, to be represented. We organized and won the Fourth Congressional District. Thirty years later, there is still just one other Latino in Congress from the whole Midwest region. She is a Latina, and I am proud to serve with her. Representation matters, and that is why our opponents are attacking our voting rights. Nobody spends years in court trying to weaken voters who do not matter. They do not redraw maps because we are weak. They redraw maps because we are powerful. They fear Black power. They fear Latino power. They fear Asian power. They fear working people standing together and saying: We will not bow to white supremacy. Right now, it is Black districts, but Latino districts are next, mark my words. Right now, it is Black districts, but Latino districts will follow. They are coming after our power because they are afraid of what happens when working people stand together. I learned that from Harold Washington. Before he became Chicago's first Black mayor, Harold Washington served in this House of Representatives from the First District of Illinois, Representative Jackson, and helped to strengthen the Voting Rights Act. When I served with him as a member of the Chicago City Council, I saw true multiracial democracy come alive because of the Voting Rights Act. {time} 2040 So let's call the attack on working rights on voting rights for what it is: It is about power and control. Our neighbors did not cross rivers and bridges, march in the streets, organize in church basements, fight in courtrooms, and knock on doors to sit down now. I came here the year the Voting Rights Act became law. Sixty ye