Catastrophic Health Coverage Promotion Act

Mr. President pro tempore, my dear friend, the senior Senator from Alaska, I see the majority leader on the floor. Is he seeking recognition?

Mr. President, before I begin, I assume we will go back and forth, from side to side of the aisle on this. But as Democrats are recognized, I ask it be in this order: Senator Kennedy for 20 minutes, Senator Durbin for 15, Senator Feinstein for up to 20 minutes, Senator Salazar for up to 15 minutes, as Democrats, are recognized. I ask unanimous consent to that.

Mr. President, I appreciate what the senior Senator from Pennsylvania said. Senator Specter and I have been friends for many years. I think we have accomplished a great deal in the Judiciary Committee. I agree with him this is the most important thing we will do. But I might also note, on a personal note about the Senator from Pennsylvania, much of what was accomplished during that time he was fighting a very serious illness. I compliment the Senator from Pennsylvania for his perseverance during that time.

The Voting Rights Act is the cornerstone of our civil rights laws. We honor those who fought through the years for equality by extending the Voting Rights Act to ensure their struggles are not forsaken and not forgotten, and that the progress we have made not be sacrificed. We honor their legacy by reaffirming our commitment to protect the right to vote for all Americans.

The distinguished senior Senator from Massachusetts, who is on the floor, was in the forefront of this battle the first time around. He and his family, his late brothers, the President and brother Senator Robert Kennedy--President Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, and now Senator Edward Kennedy, have been in the forefront of the civil rights battle. This has been a personal thing for them. It has been a commitment that has spoken to the conscience of our Nation, and I applaud my friend from Massachusetts for what he and has family have done.

Reauthorizing and restoring the Voting Rights Act is the right thing to do, not only for those who came before--the brave and visionary people who fought for equality, some at great personal sacrifice, some even giving their lives--but also for those who come after us, our children and our grandchildren. All of our children, all of our grandchildren, should know that their right to vote will not be abridged, suppressed or denied in the United States of America, no matter their color, no matter their race, no matter what part of the country from which they come.

I do thank the chairman for following the suggestion to convene the Judiciary Committee yesterday in special session to consider what really is bipartisan, bicameral legislation to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. In fact, our Senate bill, S. 2703, is cosponsored by the distinguished Republican leader and the distinguished Democratic leader, by a bipartisan majority of the Judiciary Committee and by a bipartisan majority of the Senate. In fact, at the end of our committee meeting yesterday, we had a rollcall vote. We voted unanimously to report our bill favorably to the Senate.

I mention that because so many of the things that have to go through the Judiciary Committee tend to be of a divisive nature. This was a unanimous vote. I have commended all those in the Judiciary Committee who worked so hard over the last several months to build a fair and extensive record and bring us to this point today. As I said earlier, I commend Senator Kennedy for his work. I agree with Senator Specter, when he gets passionate about a subject he doesn't need a microphone.

I commend those who started with doubts--and there were serious doubts; some regional, some for legal matters. But those who had doubts have now come around to supporting our bipartisan bill.

Because the bill we take up today and the bill from the committee to report are so similar, I know the Senate debate will be informed by the extensive record we have built before the Judiciary Committee. Over the last 4 months, we held nine hearings on all

aspects of this matter and on the overall bill itself. In another indication of bipartisanship, those hearings were chaired by large numbers of members of the committee and chaired by both Republican and Democratic Senators who wanted to send a signal that this is not a partisan matter.

All of those hearings were fairly conducted. Those Senate hearings supplement those held in the House on this matter. Indeed, our first hearing was held for the express purpose of hearing from the lead sponsors from the House and to receive the results of their hearings into our Senate Record. In fact, in anticipation of this bill coming to the floor, I have included statements in the Record in the course of this week to help make sure we have a complete record before the Senate before we vote. For example, on Tuesday, my statement focused on the continuing need for Section 5. On Wednesday, my statement focused on the continuing need for Section 203. They reflect my views as the lead Democratic Senate sponsor.

We have fewer than two dozen legislative days left in this session of Congress, so I appreciate the willingness of the Republican and Democratic leadership to take up this important measure without delay. I know the House of Representatives had to delay consideration of the Voting Act for a month due to the recalcitrance of some, recalcitrance that was overwhelmed in their vote. Here, I hope we do not suffer the same delay. This is a time for us to debate, consider, and vote on this important legislation. We should pass the bill in the same form as the House so it can be signed into law before the Senate recesses for the remainder of the summer.

There has been speculation about why we are here today. Some tied it to the fact that for the first time in his Presidency, President Bush is going to appear before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. I, for one, applaud him for going before the NAACP. All Presidents should, Republican or Democrat. And in fact, if that had anything to do with the success in getting this bill moved expeditiously through the Senate, I have a number of other organizations I hope will invite him to get other legislation moving.

The House-passed bill and the committee-reported bill is very similar. We introduced them in a bipartisan, bicameral, coordinated effort in May. The only change made to the House-passed bill was the inclusion of a governmental study added in the House Judiciary Committee. I urge the Senate to accept that addition.

The only change made during the Senate Judiciary Committee was to add an Hispanic civil rights leader to the roster of the civil rights leaders for whom the bill is named. We did this at the suggestion of Senator Salazar. It is a good suggestion. We did this unanimously. I commend the Senator for it. As Senator Salazar has reminded us, ``Cesar Chavez is an American hero. He sacrificed his life to empower the most vulnerable in America. He believed strongly in the democracy of America and saw the right to vote as a cornerstone of our freedom.'' I offered the amendment in the Judiciary Committee and it was adopted without dissent.

I told Senator Salazar that I recall the dinner with Marcelle and myself, our son Kevin and his wife Carolyn, and our granddaughter Francesca in the small Italian restaurant, Sarduccis, in Montpelier, Vermont. A family next to us came over to introduce themselves. It was Cesar Chavez's son. He apologized for interrupting our dinner. He wanted to say hello. I told him how proud I was to be interrupted and to meet him because his father had been a hero of mine. They were in Vermont because they were going to the Barre Quarry where the memorial to his father was carved.

I have also consulted with Senator Salazar. Neither of us wants to complicate final passage of the Voting Rights Act so I urge the Senate to proceed to the House-passed bill and resist amendments so it can be signed into law without having to be reconsidered by the House. With respect to the short title of the bill and the roster of civil rights leaders honored, I have committed to work with Senator Salazar to conform the law to include due recognition of the contribution to our civil rights and voting rights by Cesar Chavez in follow up legislation.

The Voting Rights Act reauthorization is named for three very important civil rights leaders, as the Senator from Pennsylvania pointed out.

Fannie Lou Hamer was a courageous advocate for the right to vote. She risked her life to secure the right to vote for all Americans. Coretta Scott King was a tenacious fighter for equality for the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and right up to the time of her passing. Many of us in this Chamber met the late Mrs. King. Everyone in the Senate can remember when less than a year ago the body of Rosa Parks lay in state in the Capitol. She was the first African American woman in our history to be so honored. She was honored because of her dignified refusal to be treated as a second-class citizen sparked the Montgomery bus boycotts that are often cited as the symbolic beginning of the modern civil rights movement.

Everyone in this Chamber would be horrified to think that somebody would be treated differently because of the color of their skin, but in the lifetime of every Senator sitting in this Chamber today, we have seen such discrimination. Let's make sure we take this step. It will not remove all discrimination, by any means, but it is a major step to let everyone in the country know that all of us are equal as Americans with equal rights, despite the color of our skin.

Last week, after months of work, the House of Representatives, led by Congressmen John Conyers, Mel Watt, John Lewis, and Chairman Sensenbrenner, rejected all efforts to reduce the sweep and effect of the Voting Rights Act. Congressman John Lewis--himself a courageous leader during those transformational struggles only decades ago, a man who was nearly killed trying to retain the rights of African Americans, said during the House debate:

When historians pick up their pens and write about this

period, let it be said that those of us in the Congress in

2006, we did the right thing. And our forefathers and our

foremothers would be very proud of us. Let us pass a clean

bill without any amendments.

That is my friend John Lewis from the House of Representatives. I want our foremothers and forefathers to be proud of us, but I want our children and our grandchildren to be proud of us, too.

The bill we are considering in the Senate today passed the other body with 390 votes in favor. In fact, the other body rejected all four amendments offered. They wanted to have a clean bill. They listened to John Lewis. They listened to the others. I congratulate the House cosponsors, both Republicans and Democrats, for their successful efforts. I hope we can repeat them in the Senate.

On May 2, when our congressional leadership joined together on the steps of the Capitol to announce a bipartisan and bicameral introduction of the Voting Rights Act, it was a historic announcement. I noted in my journal it was one of the proudest moments I had in my years in the Senate, an occasion almost unprecedented during the recent years of partisanship.

Let's not relent in our fight for the fundamental civil rights of all Americans. Working together, we should pass a clean bipartisan voting rights bill. Congress has reauthorized and revitalized the act four times, each time with overwhelming bipartisan support, pursuant to our constitutional powers. This is not a time for backsliding. This is a time to move forward together.

So let us unite to renew this cornerstone, let us rededicate ourselves to its noble purpose, and let us commemorate the many who suffered and endured to bring our cherished ideals closer to reality for millions of our fellow Americans. Let us guarantee those rights for millions of our fellow Americans to come.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I know the distinguished Senator from Virginia is going to be recognized, but I have a quick housekeeping issue.

The distinguished chairman, the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, and I want to make sure we go back and forth, side to side. So following the distinguished Senator from Virginia, we will go to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota. Following the next Republican, I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, be recognized for 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I compliment the distinguished Senator from Colorado for his speech. I mentioned him earlier in my speech on the floor and his tremendous contribution to this bill. We can all agree the time to end discrimination is still here, and we can work to do that.

Mr. President, earlier this afternoon when I was not on the Senate floor, a few Republican Senators gave statements that reflected their individual views of what the legislation we are considering today will do to address the Supreme Court's interpretation of legislative intent in the Georgia v. Ashcroft and Reno v. Bossier Parish cases. While I am not fully informed of their positions, I certainly disagree with what I heard.

In the Senate Judiciary Committee we received extensive testimony about these two provisions over the course of several hearings that informed our Committee vote yesterday. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a full explanation of the testimony we received that informed our vote yesterday and my understanding of the purpose and scope of these two provisions as an original and lead sponsor.

Mr. President, as the Senate stands poised to conclude this debate and reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, we recall the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous ``I have a Dream'' speech, where he noted: ``When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.'' The Voting Rights Act is one of the most important methods of enforcing this promise and upholding the Constitution's guarantee of equal rights and equal protection of the law. We owe it those who struggled so long and hard to transform the landscape and make America a place of political inclusion to reauthorize this important Act. We all enjoy these protections and take them for granted. No Senator would ever be denied the right to vote, but the same cannot be said about millions of others. We act so that all Americans can enjoy America's bounty, its blessings and its promise.

On May 2, our congressional leadership stood together on the steps of the Capitol--an historic announcement in an era of intense partisanship. We came together in recognition that there are few things as critical to our Nation, and to American citizenship, as voting. In sharp contrast to the tremendous resistance and bitter politics which met the initial enactment of the Voting Rights Act, our efforts this year have overcome objections through discussions, the hearing process and by developing an overwhelming record of justification for extension of the expiring provisions. Last week, the House of Representatives, after a month of delay, passed H.R. 9 by a vote of 390-33, rejecting all efforts to reduce the sweep and effect of the Voting Rights Act. Yesterday in the Senate Judiciary Committee, we did the same after almost as long a delay in considering the companion Senate bill. We acted unanimously to report the Senate bill. Now it is up to the full Senate to complete our work.

As Congressman John Lewis said, ``When historians pick up their pens and write about this period, let it be said that those of us in the Congress in 2006, we did the right thing. And our forefathers and our foremothers would be very proud of us. Let us pass a clean bill without any amendments.'' I am encouraged that we are so close to accomplishing this today.

The path that my good friend John Lewis has taken from Selma, AL, to Congress, from ``Bloody Sunday'' in 1965 on the Edmund Pettis Bridge to leading the fight in 2006 to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, is a lesson to us all. The events of Bloody Sunday, were caught on television cameras, and those powerful images laid bare for all Americans the violence encountered by many African Americans trying to exercise their civil rights. It was a crucial turning point in securing the right to vote. A few days after the violence of Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson outlined the proposed Voting Rights Act of 1965, before a joint session of Congress. Later that year, Congress passed it so that the Constitution's guarantees of equal access to the electoral process, regardless of race, would not be undermined by discriminatory practices.

Like the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, the right to vote is foundational because it secures the effective exercise of all other rights. As people are able to register, vote, and elect candidates of their choice, their interests and rights get attention. The very legitimacy of our democratic Government is dependent on the access all Americans have to the electoral process.

Today we are poised to reaffirm a cornerstone of our civil rights laws. As we do, we recall the great historic struggle for civil rights led by American heroes of vision and strength, such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King, who passed away just months ago. We honor their legacy by reaffirming our commitment to protect the right to vote for all Americans.

The pervasive discriminatory tactics that led to the original Voting Rights Act were deeply rooted. As a Nation, this effort to ensure equal protection dates back more than 135 years to the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870, the last of the post-Civil War Reconstruction amendments. It took the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for people of all races in many parts of our country to begin the effective exercise of rights granted 95 years earlier by the 15th Amendment. Despite the additional gains we have made in enabling racial minorities to participate in the political life of the Nation, the work of the Voting Rights Act is not yet done.

In fact, in the recent LULAC decision, the Supreme Court--finding that 100,000 Latino Americans were illegally disenfranchised in Texas-- affirmed that racial discrimination against our Nation's minorities persists today. It proves that the protections of the Voting Rights Act are still needed. We have this year undertaken an extensive process of congressional fact-finding. What it establishes is that we are right to extend the protections of the Voting Rights Act.

In the Senate Judiciary Committee, we held nine hearings on the Voting Rights Act. We received thousands of pages of testimony, reports, articles,

letters, statistics, and other relevant material from a wide variety of sources to inform our consideration. The evidence gathered, together with the record developed in a dozen hearings in the House provide us with an adequate basis for Congress to determine that the protections of the Voting Rights Act are still needed both to maintain the gains already achieved and to continue to enforce the guarantees of equality enshrined in the 14th and 15th Amendments.

Much of the testimony we received focused on the continuing need for Sections 5 and 203 of the Voting Rights Act as essential safeguards to the rights and interests of Americans of all races and our language minorities.

The record we have assembled and consider justifies the renewal of Section 5. This section requires certain jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to ``pre-clear'' all voting changes with either the Justice Department or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In doing so, Section 5 combats the practice of those jurisdictions of shifting from one invalidated discriminatory tactic to another, which had undermined earlier efforts to enforce the 15th Amendment. After ``enduring nearly a century of systematic resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment,'' Congress found, it was imperative to ``shift the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims.''

Section 5 continues to be a tremendous tool for protecting minority voting rights and a necessary one. For example, in 1992, the Attorney General used Section 5 to stop Wrightsville, GA, from relocating its polling place from the county courthouse to a private all-white club with a history of refusing membership to black applicants and a then- current practice of hosting functions to which blacks were not welcome. Even more recently, in 2001, Kilmichael, Mississippi's white mayor and all-white Board of Aldermen abruptly cancelled an election after Census data revealed that African Americans had become the majority in the town and an unprecedented number of African-American candidates were running for office. The Justice Department objected under Section 5. Only after the Justice Department forced Kilmichael to hold an election in 2003 did it elect its first African-American mayor, along with three African-American aldermen.

These are just a couple of examples that are representative of the barriers to political participation that all too many American citizens still face today, in 2006. In addition to finding extensive evidence that covered jurisdictions have continued to engage in discriminatory tactics, we also found that the Section 5 preclearance requirement has served a vital prophylactic purpose in protecting against discriminatory voting practices before they go into place and securing the gains made in minority political participation.

The record also supports renewal of Sections 203 and 4(f)(4), which require bilingual voting assistance for certain language minority groups, to ensure that all Americans are able to exercise their fundamental right as citizens to vote. According to the most recent information from the Census, more than 70 percent of citizens who use language assistance are native born, including Native Americans, Alaska natives and Puerto Ricans. Many of those who benefit from Sections 203 and 4(f)(4) suffer from inadequate educational opportunities to learn English.

These Americans are trying to vote but many of them are struggling with the English language due to disparities in education and the incremental process of learning. We can and we must reauthorize these provisions to make sure there is no literacy test at the polling place. We endured a time in our Nation's history when such tests disenfranchised many voters. Renewing the expiring language provisions will help enable all Americans to participate fully in our Nation's democracy.

The record also supports the need to amend the VRA to restore its original purpose in response to two Supreme Court decisions that have limited its effectiveness. The bill remedies the Supreme Court's holding in Reno v. Bossier Parish, by making clear that a voting rule change motivated by any discriminatory purpose violates Section 5. Under the holding in Reno v. Bossier Parish, certain voting rule changes passed with the intent to discriminate against minorities could pass Section 5 muster. Because such an interpretation is inconsistent with congressional intent and the purpose of the Voting Rights Act to eliminate discriminatory tactics that undermine the guarantees of the 15th Amendment, our bill fixes this inconsistency by clarifying that a voting rule change motivated by any discriminatory purpose also cannot be pre-cleared.

The bill also remedies the Supreme Court's holding in Georgia v. Ashcroft. In this case, the Supreme Court provided an unclear and unworkable test for assessing a jurisdiction's challenge to denial of Section 5 pre-clearance. Congressional intent was to protect the ability of a minority community to elect a candidate of its choice. This legislation clarifies our congressional intent by setting forth defined factors to restore the original understanding of the Voting Rights Act to protect the minority community's ability to elect their preferred candidates of choice.

It has often been said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. We must make certain that the significant gains in voting rights over the past four decades do not suffer the same fate as the voting rights provided during Reconstruction. After the Civil War, the Reconstruction Act promised that the guarantees of the 15th Amendment would be realized. Between 1870 and 1900, 22 African- Americans served in the United States Congress. In 1868, Louisiana elected an African-American Lieutenant Governor, Oscar Dunn, and 87 African Americans held seats in the South Carolina legislature. However, these Reconstruction-era gains in African-American voting and representation proved to be short-lived. Following the end of Reconstruction, the rights of African-Americans to vote and to hold office were virtually eliminated in many areas through discriminatory legal barriers, intimidation, and violence. The changes were swift, systematic and severe. By 1896, Representative George White of North Carolina was the only African American remaining in the U.S. Congress, and it would take 72 years after Representative White left Congress for African-American voters in the South to elect another candidate of their choice to Congress.

In Mississippi, the percentage of African-American voting-age men registered to vote fell from over 90 percent during the Reconstruction period to less than 6 percent in 1892. Between 1896 and 1900, the number of African-American voters in Louisiana was reduced from 130,000 to a mere 5,000. Unlike the short-lived gains made by African-American voters during Reconstruction, their exclusion from the ballot box was persistent. Only 3 percent of voting-age African-American men and women in the South were registered to vote in 1940, only 1 percent in Mississippi. These numbers provide a lesson we cannot not ignore.

The passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 was a turning point. We have made progress toward a more inclusive democracy since then but I fear that if we fail to reauthorize the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act, we are likely to backslide. In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, civil rights lawyer Robert McDuff warned:

No place more than Mississippi has been torn by slavery, by

the lost promise of emancipation after the Reconstruction

period, by the resurgence of racist power in the latter part

of the 19th century and most of the 20th, and by the legacy

of poverty and racial separation that still exists. While

people's behavior and people's hearts can change over time,

vigilance is required to ensure that laws and structures

remain in place to prevent us as a society from turning back

to the worst impulses of the past. Occasional flashes of

those impulses illustrate the need for that vigilance.

Important changes have come to pass in Mississippi in the

last 40 years--changes due in large part to the mechanisms of

the Voting Rights Act, particularly the preclearance

provision of Section 5. But, like the gains that were washed

away after the nation abandoned the goals of Reconstruction

in 1876, the progress of the last 40 years is not assured for

the future.

When we have such legal protections that are proven effective when enforced, we should not abandon them prematurely simply in the hope equality will come. Reauthorizing and restoring the Voting Rights Act is the right thing to do, not only for those who came before--the brave people who

fought for equality--but also for those who come after us, our children and our grandchildren. No one's right to vote should be abridged, suppressed or denied in the United States of America.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is one of the most important laws Congress has ever passed. It helped to usher the country out of a history of discrimination into the greater inclusion of more Americans in the decisions about our Nation's future. Our democracy and our Nation are better and richer for it. We cannot relent in our fight for the fundamental civil rights of all Americans. Congress has reauthorized and revitalized the Act four times pursuant to its constitutional powers. This is no time for backsliding, this is the time to move forward together.

As the Senate completes consideration of this important legislation-- the culmination of many months of legislative activity to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act--I welcome the President's statement of support today. It was a long time in coming, and the long way round, but he got there. The President is right to have spoken of racial discrimination as a wound not fully healed. We all want our revitalization of the Voting Rights Act we consider today to help in that healing process and in guaranteeing the fundamental right to vote.

I was reminded today of when the President spoke dramatically last September from New Orleans' Jackson Square and pledged to confront poverty with bold action. I look forward to that bold action. He spoke then of helping our people overcome what he called ``deep, persistent poverty,'' ``poverty with roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America.'' I agree with him. We must, as the President said that night, ``rise above the legacy of inequality.'' That is a shameful legacy that still exists and still needs to be overcome. The President is right that ``the wounds'' of racial discrimination need to be fully healed.

In my judgment, based on the record before this Senate, the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is needed to ensure that healing.

We heard so often during the civil rights movement ``we shall overcome.'' But it is not just a case of we shall overcome, it is ``we must overcome.''

I also welcome the support of others who have come recently to this cause and struggle. I welcome our Senate bill cosponsors who joined us after the companion House bill had already won 390 votes and even those who joined after the Senate bill was successfully voted out of our Committee, 18-0. It is never too late to join a good cause, and protecting the fundamental right to vote and have Americans' votes count is just such a cause.

Someone who was not late to the struggle but who has been at its forefront since his election to the Senate in 1962 is the senior Senator from Massachusetts. He worked to pass the original landmark Voting Rights Act in 1965. On this issue he is the Senate's leader. It has been an honor to work beside him in this important effort. And work he did. To assemble the record required work. He came to our hearings, helped organize them, helped assemble the witnesses, and when Senators from the majority were unavailable, he and I proceeded with the permission of our chairman to chair those hearings. We would not be passing this bill without the overwhelming support that it will have if it had not been for Senator Kennedy.

Of course, we also honor the senior Senator from Hawaii who likewise voted for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and each of its reauthorizations. His leadership in these matters is greatly appreciated by this Senator and, I believe, by the Senate.

I also thank the Democratic leader for his help. Senator Reid stayed focused on making sure this essential legislative objective was achieved. He worked with us and the Republican leader throughout. He is a lead sponsor of the legislation and was a key participant at our bicameral announcement on the steps of the Capitol on May 2.

Throughout the process of developing the bill, developing the legislative record and considering the bill, he has never failed to go the extra mile to ensure the success of this effort.

I thank our Chairman and lead Senate sponsor. As I pushed and cajoled and urged action he heard me out. Together with the other active members of the Judiciary Committee, we worked to assemble the necessary record and consider it so that our bill is on a solid factual, legal and constitutional foundation. I thank each of our cosponsors and, in particular, those who joined us early on, those on the Judiciary Committee, and the Republican leader.

There are too many others who deserve thanks. They include Senator Salazar for his contributions throughout and for his thoughtful initiative to broaden those for whom this bill is named by including Cesar Chavez. I look forward to working with him to make that a reality. To all who have supported this effort I say thank you and know that your real thanks will be in the fulfillment of the promise of equality for all Americans in the years ahead.

I wholeheartedly thank the members of the civil rights community.

Led by Wade Henderson and Nancy Zirkin at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and by Bruce Gordon and Hilary Shelton of the NAACP and by lawyers like Ted Shaw and Leslie Proll and all the voting rights attorneys who have made the cause of equal justice their lives' work, they have been indispensable to this effort and relentless in their commitment to what is best about America.

I thank my own staff, led by Bruce Cohen, backed by a wonderful staff of Kristine Lucius, Jeremy Paris, Kathryn Neal, Leila George-Wheeler, Margaret Edmonds, and our legal clerks Robynn Sturm, Arline Duffy and Peter Jewett.

I express my appreciation and admiration for all they do to make Congress and America measure up to the promise of our Constitution and the vision that Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King and Cesar Chavez had for America.

As I said earlier today, all 100 Senators have no problem voting. They can walk into a voting booth in their home State, and nobody is going to say no. We have to make sure that everybody else is treated the same as we 100 Senators are. This is for us, this is for our children, and on a personal level, this is also for our grandchildren.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, if the Senator will withhold.

Mr. President, I want to make sure--I was not trying to force it to a vote. I know the distinguished Republican leader will speak next, but many of us spent a lot of time on this, and we want to make sure it will be--as one of the managers of the bill--we want to make absolutely sure there will be a rollcall vote.

If nobody is seeking recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, is there still time available on this side?

The yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. President, this is an historic day. In the quietness of the moment, on the floor of the Senate, we are talking about a major piece of legislation that is basic to the fabric of what America is all about. But the quietness does not belie the fact that this is a momentous piece of legislation that marks the continuation of this Nation as a true democracy.

I want, at the outset, to commend my friends and leaders on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Specter and Senator Leahy. I can remember talking with both of them early on about putting this on the Senate agenda, putting it on the Judiciary Committee agenda. There are not two Members of this body who are more committed to this legislation than Chairman Specter and Senator Leahy.

We are here today because of their leadership and their strong commitment to the concept of making sure that America is going to be America by insisting on the extension of this voting rights legislation. They have both been tireless during the course of the series of hearings that we have held. They have been meticulous in terms of determining the witnesses that we would have and in building the legislative record, which is so important and of such great consequence in terms of maintaining the constitutionality of this legislation, which is, of course, so important. So I thank both of them for their leadership and their generous references earlier during their statements.

Mr. President, the Constitution of the United States is an extraordinary document, the greatest charter that has ever been written in terms of preserving the rights and liberties of the people. Still, slavery was enshrined in the Constitution. And this country has had a challenging time freeing itself from the legacy of slavery. We had a difficult time in fighting the great Civil War. And we have had a challenging time freeing ourselves from discrimination--all forms of discrimination--but particularly racial discrimination. And we had a difficult time, particularly in the early 1960s, in passing legislation--legislation which could be enormously valuable in freeing a country from the stains of discrimination. But it takes much more than just legislation to achieve that.

I was fortunate enough to be here at the time we passed the 1964 civil rights bill that dealt with what we call public accommodations. It is difficult to believe that people were denied access to public accommodations--the ability to go to hotels, restaurants, and other places because of the color of their skin--in the United States of America. Mr. President, this legislation was debated for 10 months. Not just 1 day, as we all have today on voting rights, but for 10 months, the Senate was in session as we faced a filibuster on that legislation.

Then, finally, Senator Everett Dirksen responded to the very eloquent pleas of President Johnson at that time and indicated that he was prepared to move the legislation forward and make some adjustments in the legislation. We were able to come to an agreement, and the law went into effect.

In 1965, we had hours and hours and hours and hours during the course of the markup of the Voting Rights Act, and hours and hours and hours on the floor of the Senate to pass that legislation, with amendment after amendment after amendment. We were ultimately successful. And just off the Senate Chamber, in the President's Room--just a few yards from where I am standing today--President Johnson signed that legislation.

Now, we continue the process. It has not always been easy during the continuation and the reauthorization of the Act. Rarely have we been as fortunate as we are today with the time agreement and an understanding that we will consider this and finalize it this evening, in a way that will avoid a contentious conference with the House of Representatives that could have gone on for weeks and even months, as we've seen in the past. This legislation will go to the President's desk, and he will sign it.

There is no subject matter that brings out emotions like the issue of civil rights. That is, perhaps, understandable. But it is still very true. No issue that we debate--health care, education, increasing the minimum wage, age discrimination, environmental questions--whatever those matters are, nothing brings out the emotions like civil rights legislation.

But here we have a very important piece of civil rights legislation that is going to be favorably considered, and I will speak about that in just a few moments. We have to understand, as important as this legislation is, it really is not worth the paper it is printed on unless it is going to be enforced. That is enormously important. As we pass this legislation and we talk about its importance, and the importance of its various provisions, we have to make sure we have an administration and a Justice Department that is going to enforce it. That has not always been the case.

Secondly, it is enormously important that we have judges who interpret the legislation the way we intended for it to be interpreted.

We have, in this situation, a bipartisan interpretation. We have a bicameral interpretation. There should be no reason that any court in this country--particularly a Supreme Court that is looking over its provisions--should not understand very clearly what we intended, the constitutional basis for it. We need judges who are going to interpret this in good faith. That has not always been the case, and I will reference that in terms of my comments.

Then, we have to make sure we have a process and system so that, even if we have the legislation, and even if we have a Justice Department correctly interpret it, and even if we have judges correctly interpret it, we have to make sure there are not going to be other interferences with any individuals' ability to vote. That is another subject for another time, but enormously important.

We need all of those factors, at least, to make sure that this basic and fundamental right, which is so important, and which we are addressing today, is actually going to be achieved and accomplished for our fellow citizens.

Mr. President, we are, as I mentioned, poised to take another historic step in America's journey toward becoming the land of its ideals. As we all know, the battle for racial equality in America is far from over. The landmark civil rights laws that we have passed in the past four decades have provided a legal foundation, but the full promise of these laws has yet to be fulfilled.

Literacy tests may no longer block access to the ballot box, but we cannot ignore the fact that discrimination is sometimes as plain as ever, and that more subtle forms of discrimination are plotted in back rooms, to be imposed by manipulating redistricting boundaries to dilute minority voting strength, or by systematic strategies on election day to discourage minority voting.

The persistence of overt and more subtle discrimination makes it mandatory that we reauthorize the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act. This act is perhaps Congress's greatest contribution to the march toward equality in our society. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, voting is ``civil right number one.'' It is the right in our democracy that preserves all others. So long as the vote is available and freely exercised by our entire citizenry, this Nation will remain strong and our other rights will be protected.

For nearly a century, the 15th amendment guaranteed that ``the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,'' but it took the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to breathe life into that basic guarantee. And it took the actions of many brave men and women, such as those who gathered at the Edmund Pettis Bridge and faced the shameful violence of those who would deny them the right to vote, before the Nation finally acted.

I'm honored to have fought in the Senate for the Voting Rights Act each time it was before Congress--from its historic passage in 1965 to the votes to extend the act in 1970, 1975, and 1982

and to strengthen it along the way. I recall watching President Lyndon Baines Johnson sign the 1965 act just off this chamber in the President's Room. We knew that day that we had changed the country forever. And indeed we had. In 1965, there were only three African American and three Latino Members of Congress. Today, there are 41 African-American Members in the House of Representatives, one African- American Senator, 22 Latino House Members, and two Latino Senators. These gains would not have been possible without the Voting Rights Act.

I recall extending the expiring provisions of the act in 1970. I remember extending it again in 1975, and adding protections for citizens who needed language assistance. We recognized that those voters warranted assistance because unequal education resulted in high rates of illiteracy and low rates of voter participation in those populations.

And I recall well extending the act again in 1982. That time, we extended the expiring provisions of the act for 25 years and strengthened it by overturning the Supreme Court's decision in Mobile v. Bolden. That decision weakened the act by imposing an intent standard pursuant to section 2 of the act, but despite the opposition of President Reagan and his Department of Justice, we were able to restore the act's vitality by replacing that standard with a results test that provides greater protection for victims of discriminatory treatment.

Finally, in 1992, we revisited the act to extend and broaden its coverage of individuals whose English language ability is insufficient to allow them to participate fully in our democratic system.

In memory of Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, and Cesar Chavez, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to support extension of the act once again for another 25 years.

Some have questioned whether there is still a need for the act's expiring provisions. They even argue that discrimination in voting is a thing of the past, and that we are relying on decades-old discrimination to stigmatize certain areas of the country today.

I have heard the evidence presented over the past several months of hearings, and I can tell you that they are just plain wrong. Yes, we have made progress that was almost unimaginable in 1965. But the goal of the Voting Rights Act was to have full and equal access for every American regardless of race. We have not achieved that goal.

In considering this bill, the Senate Judiciary Committee has held nine hearings and heard from some 46 witnesses. In addition, we have received numerous written statements and have voluminous reports from a variety of groups that have examined the state of voting rights in our Nation. We have explored every aspect of the expiring provisions of the act, and have all come to one inescapable conclusion: continuing discrimination requires that we pass this bill and reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. The evidence demonstrates that far too many Americans still face barriers because of their race, their ethnic background or their language minority status.

Section 5 is the centerpiece of the expiring provisions of the act. It requires that covered jurisdictions preclear voting changes with the Department of Justice or the District Court in the District of Columbia by proving that the changes do not have a retrogressive purpose or effect. The act would reverse the second Bossier Parish decision and restore the section 5 standard to its original meaning by making it clear that a discriminatory purpose will prevent section 5 preclearance. Even under the weaker standard that has governed since the Bossier decision, the Department of Justice has had to object to egregious discriminatory practices.

The act as reauthorized also overturns the Supreme Court's decision in Georgia v. Ashcroft, restoring section 5's protection of voting districts where minority voters have an ability to elect their preferred candidates. This revision would preclude jurisdictions from replacing districts in which minority voters have the voting power to elect their preferred candidates with districts in which minority voters merely exercise influence.

The number of objections under section 5 has remained large since we last reauthorized the act in 1982. Astonishingly, Professor Anita Earls of the University of North Carolina Law School testified that between 1982 and 2004, the Department of Justice lodged 682 section 5 objections in covered jurisdictions compared with only 481 objections prior to 1982. In Mississippi alone, the Department of Justice objected to 120 voting changes since 1982. This number is roughly double the number of objections made before 1982.

Behind these statistics are stories of the voters who were able to participate in the political process because the Voting Rights Act protects their fundamental right to do so. For example, in 2001, the town of Kilmichael, MS, cancelled its elections just three weeks before election day. The Justice Department objected to the cancellation, finding that the town failed to establish that its actions were not motivated by the discriminatory purpose of preventing African-American voters from electing candidates of their choice. The town had recently become majority African-American and, for the first time in its history, several African-American candidates had a good chance of winning elected office. Section 5 prevented this discriminatory change from being implemented, and as a result, three African-American candidates were elected to the board of aldermen and an African- American was elected mayor for the first time.

Consider the Dinwiddie County Board of Supervisors in Virginia. It moved a polling place from a club with a large African-American membership to a white church on the other side of town, under the pretext that the church was more centrally located. We saw this tactic when we renewed the act in 1970. We didn't expect to see it again in on the eve of the 21st century, but we did.

Some have argued that there has been a drop in the number of objections in recent years. As the record shows, that decline is explained by a number of reasons. First, of course, was the Supreme Court's restrictive interpretation of the purpose standard, which we will correct today. In addition, the numbers do not account for proposed changes that are rejected by the district court or proposed changes that are withdrawn once the Department of Justice asks for more information or litigation begins in the District Court. Equally as important are the discriminatory changes the act has deterred covered jurisdictions from ever enacting, and the dialog the act promotes between local election officials and minority community leaders to ensure consideration of minority communities' concerns in the legislative process.

And, of course, there are matters that merit objection, but have been precleared by the Bush Department of Justice because the Department's political leadership refused to follow the recommendations of career experts.

The Department twice precleared Georgia's effort to impose a photo identification requirement for voting. The first time, the district court threw it out as an unconstitutional poll tax. That's right, a poll tax in 2006. In 1965, we fought the poll tax during the debate of the original Voting Rights Act. After the Supreme Court ultimately held it unconstitutional, we thought this shameful practice had ended. But the court found that the Georgia law was just a 21st century version of this old evil.

Georgia reenacted the law without the poll tax, and the Court still found that it unlawfully disadvantaged poor and minority voters, who are less likely to have the required identification.

Recently, the Supreme Court held that the Texas Legislature had violated the Voting Rights Act by shifting 100,000 Latino voters out of a district just as they were about to defeat an incumbent and finally elect a candidate of their choice. Once again, section 5 would have blocked this practice, but the leadership of the Department of Justice overruled career experts who recommended an objection.

The fact that the number of section 5 objections is a small percentage of the total number of submissions shouldn't be surprising. Jurisdictions take section 5 into consideration when adopting voting changes and many day-to-day changes are noncontroversial. What should surprise and concern us is

the fact that there continue to be objections and voting changes like the ones that I have described.

It has also been argued that the section 5 coverage formula is both over and under-inclusive. The act addresses that problem by permitting jurisdictions where Federal oversight is no longer warranted to ``bail out'' from coverage under section 5. We have letters from two of the jurisdictions that have taken advantage of the bailout process explaining that they did not find that process to be onerous. So far, every jurisdiction that has sought a bailout has succeeded. For jurisdictions that should be covered but aren't, the act contains a mechanism by which a court may order a non-covered jurisdiction found to have violated the 14th or 15th amendments to obtain section 5 preclearance for its voting changes. As a result, the act's preclearance requirement applies only to jurisdiction where there is a need for such oversight.

The act will also reauthorize the provisions of the act that mandate the provision of election assistance in minority languages. In the course of our consideration of this bill, we heard substantial evidence demonstrating that these provisions are still necessary. The original rationale for enactment of these provisions was twofold. First, there are many Americans who speak languages other than English, many of whom are United States citizens by birth--including Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Puerto Ricans. These Americans should not be denied the opportunity to be full participants in our democracy because of the languages they speak. They know they need to learn English to succeed in this country. That's why classes to learn English are oversubscribed all over the country.

Additionally, Congress concluded that many Americans--including Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans--suffer from inadequate educational opportunities that deny them the opportunity to master English at a sufficient level to fully understand electoral issues and cast meaningful ballots. The nationwide statistics illustrate the problem. Only 75 percent of Alaska Natives complete high school, compared to 90 percent of non-Natives, and only 52 percent of all Hispanic Americans have a high school diploma, compared to over 80 percent of all Americans. We heard testimony that while many of these people may speak conversational English, they have been denied the educational instruction--often as a result of intentional discrimination--that would allow them to understand complex electoral issues and technical voting terminology in English alone.

Finally, it is crucial that we extend the guarantees of all of the temporary provisions of the act for 25 years. Twenty-five years is not a long time when compared to the centuries of oppression that the law is intended to overcome. While we have made enormous progress, it takes time to overcome the deep-seated patterns of behavior that have denied minorities full access to the ballot. Indeed, the worst thing we could do would be to allow that progress to slip away because we ended the cure too soon. We know that the act is having an impact. We know that it is deterring discrimination. And we know that despite the act, racial bloc voting and other forms of discrimination continue to tilt the playing field for minority voters and candidates. We need to ensure that jurisdictions know that the act will be in force for a sufficiently long period that they cannot simply wait for its expiration, but must eliminate discrimination root and branch.

The time has come to renew the Voting Rights Act. This historic piece of legislation renews our commitment to the fundamental values of America. It ensures that all of our citizens will have the right to play an effective role in our governance. It continues us down the path toward a democracy free of the blight of discrimination based on race, ethnicity and language. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: ``The time is always right to do what is right.'' The right thing to do is to pass this bill and the time to do it is now.

I yield the floor.

Just 2 minutes.

Mr. President, I thank our leader, Senator Reid, for his constancy in support of this legislative effort and for his encouragement to all of us on the Judiciary Committee. I thank my friend from Vermont for his kind words.

Earlier today, there have been comments by my friend--and he is my friend--in the Judiciary Committee, Senator Cornyn, and also with regard to particular provisions in section 5, and later there were comments from Senator Cornyn and Senator Kyl about an amendment offered by Congressman Norwood over in the House of Representatives. I think it is important that the Record reflect the results of the extensive hearings that we had on these different issues because it is extensive, exhaustive, and it is presented by the floor managers, Senators Specter and Leahy.

Senator Cornyn suggested in his remarks that he wishes we had taken more time to debate fully some of the issues raised by the reauthorization. In particular, he said he wished more time had been taken to consider the trigger formula for section 5. As an initial matter, the Senate began its consideration of renewing the Voting Rights Act with the very substantial record that had been assembled by the House, which contained over 10,000 pages that were the result of by over 8 months of House Judiciary Committee hearings.

From our very first Senate hearing, Chairman Specter stressed the need to

build a strong record in anticipation of challenges to the act's constitutionality. That's exactly what we did. We heard from legal scholars and voting rights practitioners. We held 9 hearings, heard from 41 witnesses, and received well over ten thousand pages of documentary evidence. That evidence showed, unequivocally that discrimination, including intentional discrimination, persists in the covered jurisdictions, and that the trigger is effective in identifying jurisdictions for section 5 coverage. Senator Cornyn joined a unanimous committee in voting for the committee bill, which retains the act's trigger formula.

Senator Cornyn also held up a map of the United States depicting jurisdictions that would be covered if the amendment offered last week in the House by Representative Norwood had been adopted, which would base coverage on voter registration and turnout during the last three Presidential elections. Representative Norwood had a full airing of his proposal and many rose in opposition, including Chairman Sensenbrenner. The opponents of the amendment overwhelmingly carried the day.

Senator Cornyn said that the Norwood trigger would not appear to gut section 5. However, under The Norwood formula, the State of Louisiana essentially wouldn't be covered. Yet, there is substantial evidence in our record of ongoing and recent voting discrimination in Louisiana. Yet the so-called updated trigger formula would exclude this sort of jurisdiction from coverage.

Finally, Senator Cornyn and Senator Kyl discussed the provision of the bill known as the Georgia v. Ashcroft fix, which clarifies the retrogression standard in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Georgia v. Ashcroft. The bill restores section 5's ``ability-to-elect standard,'' which was set forth in the Beer case. Under the Beer standard, ``ability-to-elect'' districts include majority-minority districts where minority voters demonstrate an ability to elect the candidates of their choice. Contrary to the suggestions of Senator Cornyn and Senator Kyl on the floor, while the standard rejects the notion that ``ability-to-elect'' districts can be traded for ``influence'' districts, it also recognizes that minority voters may be able to elect candidates of their choice with reliable crossover support and, thus, does not mandate the creation and maintenance of majority-minority districts in all circumstances. The test is fact- specific, and turns on the particular circumstances of each case. As both Senator Cornyn and Senator Kyl noted, the Voting Rights Act is not about electing candidates of particular parties. It's about enabling minority voters to participate effectively and equally in the political process.

I thank the Senator and yield back whatever time remains.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, it is with a great sense of pride and privilege that I rise today in strong, strong support of H.R. 9, the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006.

In my view, of all the values which underpin a democracy, none-- none--is more essential than the right of a citizen to participate in the election of those who will govern and represent them.

Voting is the participatory voice of our form of democracy. It is imperative, in my view, that we reaffirm this fundamental principle by expeditiously reauthorizing this fundamental voting rights legislation. It is for this reason that I will vote in favor of the Voting Rights Act extension. America must overcome its legacy of discrimination in voting.

Let me, first of all, applaud our colleagues, if I may, the leaders of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Specter, Senator Leahy, and Senator Kennedy for their extraordinary efforts to develop a truly bipartisan piece of legislation that has been brought to the floor here today. I feel very strongly about the need to reauthorize this law, and I commend our colleagues for the leadership they have shown in marking up a bill that I gather passed unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee and is before us today.

It was about 40 years ago when I was sitting up in these Galleries, watching the U.S. Senate as it engaged in an impassioned debate among our predecessors in this Chamber about whether to extend to all Americans equal rights at the polling place. I was a college student at the time. I listened to one U.S. Senator say:

Freedom and the right to vote are indivisible.

That U.S. Senator was my father, Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, speaking about the Voting Rights Act in that year. As I watched my father and his colleagues engage in a very heated debate, I was proud of how many Members of this body, on both sides of the aisle, worked to end discriminatory voting practices, Republicans and Democrats alike coming together.

It was following this debate, in 1965, that Congress took up and passed the Voting Rights Act--the first being the Civil Rights Act--as a response to the pervasive and explicit evidence of disenfranchisement of African-American and other voters in several States in our country.

The Voting Rights Act was designed, of course, as we all know, to protect and preserve the voting rights of all Americans. Since 1965, this act has been the cornerstone of voting rights in our country, and its success is a tribute to those who have labored to create it.

I would be remiss if I did not pay tribute to those that this act is named for: Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King. Many may recall, it was Fannie Lou Hamer who once commented that she was ``sick and tired of being sick and tired.'' In 1962, Mrs. Hamer, the youngest of 19 children, daughter of sharecroppers, and granddaughter of slaves, attended a voting registration drive held by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. There she learned that African Americans indeed had the constitutional right to vote.

She was the first to volunteer for a dangerous mission to the Indianola, MS, courthouse to register to vote. Courageously, she declared:

[T]he only thing they could do to me was to kill me, and it

seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a

time ever since I could remember.

When Mrs. Hamer reached the courthouse, she and her companions were beaten and jailed. But she was not deterred. She went on to travel the country to encourage others to vote and later founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the all-white Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Convention--not in the 19th century, not in the early part of the 20th century--but in 1964.

The Voting Rights Act was signed into law a year later. In my view, if Mrs. Hamer had not risked her life and limb in order to register to vote, the plight of minority voters shut out of their own democracy may have continued, unfortunately.

Rosa Parks was another pioneer of the civil rights movement. As a seamstress in Montgomery, AL, she famously challenged the Jim Crow laws of segregation in 1955. Mrs. Parks once recalled that as a young child:

I'd see the bus pass every day. . . . But to me, that was a

way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the

custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was

a black world and a white world.

Her historic refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger led to her arrest, and sparked a citywide boycott of the bus system, which triggered two Supreme Court decisions outlawing segregation on city buses. In my view, her silent protest launched the modernday civil rights movement. And we owe her a great deal of debt for her courage.

In describing this incident, Mrs. Parks later recalled:

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I

was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically,

or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working

day. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

For more than four decades, Mrs. Parks dedicated herself to the fight for racial equality. I strongly believe that if Mrs. Parks had not refused to give up her seat and had gone to the back of the bus that day we would not be here today considering this historic legislation.

Let me mention the third individual for whom this act is being named today.

Coretta Scott King, of course, the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, joined her husband and thousands of others to march from Selma to Montgomery, AL, on Sunday, March 7, 1965. That march, of course, galvanized the core political will behind the civil rights movement and served as a catalyst for the Voting Rights Act.

These three women worked for a better life and an inclusive society for not only themselves and their children, but also for future generations of Americans.

They selflessly and nonviolently challenged the laws and customs they believed were wrong. And they were right. Their ability to speak ``truth to power'' became their legacy. All three are iconic in the fight for the right to vote and a better life for all Americans.

Let me go on to point out here--I will not go into the specific sections of this bill. I know others have talked about that, why these sections are necessary to be continued for another 25 years. Let me, if I can, address some of the concerns that were raised in the other body in objections to the Voting Rights Act, if I may--those who question why divisions of a 41-year-old law deserve to be reauthorized. And while I agree, progress has certainly been made--and we are all grateful for that--we still have many obstacles to overcome in the conduct of our elections.

Progress cannot be left to just serendipity. It must be guided by the rule of law. A little more than 5 years ago, we had an election in this country that forced us to confront the harsh reality that millions of Americans continue to be systematically denied their constitutional right to vote.

Every citizen deserves, of course, to have his or her vote counted as well. There are legal barriers, administrative irregularities, and access impediments to the right to vote which adversely and disproportionately impact voters according to their color, economic class, age, gender, disability, language, party, and precinct. That is wrong. It is unacceptable. It is un-American. And it needs to be changed.

It was unacceptable in 1965, and it is reprehensible in the year 2006. Congress must now reauthorize the expiring portions of the Voting Rights Act to continue to protect and preserve the voting rights of all Americans.

I have been closely following the reauthorization process in both Chambers. I was apprehensive when House Republicans attempted to amend the Voting Rights Act to undermine some of its very key provisions-- essentially weakening this very important and fundamental law. They tried to repeal the current formula of section 5 in order to exempt States with historically discriminatory voting practices from continued coverage. They wanted to expedite the ``bailout'' process overriding the sensible framework for jurisdictions to demonstrate that they should not be subject to continuing section 5 coverage. They wanted to require us to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in only 10 short years. Finally, in what I think is the most alarming attempt to weaken this vital law, House Republicans wanted to strike section 203 which ensures that all American citizens, regardless of language ability, are able to participate on a fair and equal basis in elections.

I believe all Americans who are voting should learn to speak the English language. It should be our goal that all American citizens who vote should be able to understand an English language ballot. That is something we are wrestling with all the time. But we also recognize there are many here who are in the process of transition. Many of our citizens speak only one language as they are learning English. That makes them no less deserving, if they are citizens, of the basic rights and liberties which all Americans should expect and are entitled to. Section 203 must be retained or its unique ability to remove barriers to this fundamental right to vote and to help promote meaningful participation among all segments of our society will be in jeopardy.

I am grateful that the civil rights groups, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, the AFL- CIO and others, have worked so closely with Democratic Members of the House of Representatives to prevail over this adversity and were able to defeat every single one of these amendments.

Central to the foundation of our democratic form of government is, of course, the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act today facilitates and ensures that right. In a representative democracy, voting is the best avenue, of course, by which voters can gain access and influence lawmakers in Federal, State, and local governments. Voting gives the people a voice. We must protect their ability to be heard and to speak.

Yesterday, I had the great privilege of meeting with 40 representatives from the Connecticut chapter of the NAACP about this important reauthorization.

Their message was clear: the critical protections offered by the Voting Rights Act must be extended. We are not on the Floor today to reauthorize the right to vote. That right is guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Instead, we are here to provide tools to enforce that right for all Americans.

While it is critical that the Senate act to reauthorize these expiring sections of the Voting Rights Act today, it is important to recognize that this action alone will not secure the franchise for all Americans. Much more is needed to be done to ensure that every eligible American voter has an equal opportunity to vote and have their vote counted.

In addition to the obstacles that the Voting Rights Act is designed to address, too many Americans still face impediments to voting. The Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 are replete with examples of such obstacles, including: too few polling places or too few voting machines to serve the turnout; eligible voters' names not on the registration list; errors in the registration lists; malfunctioning machines and machines that produce no audit trail; eligible voters turned away at the polls; disabled voters unable to cast a secret ballot; voters unable to correct mistakes on ballots or even receive a new ballot if their ballot was spoiled, to name only a few.

Congress addressed some of these impediments in the landmark legislation enacted following the debacle of the presidential election in 2002 in the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, which I was pleased to author in the Senate. That legislation established Federal minimum requirements that all States must have in place by the Federal elections this year. Those requirements include allowing any voter who is challenged at the polls to cast a provisional ballot, which is set aside and counted after eligibility, is confirmed. States must also meet new Federal minimum standards for voting systems, including providing second-chance voting, ensuring disability access, and providing for a permanent paper record for auditing purposes. And States must implement a statewide, computerized registration list to serve as the official registration list for Federal elections.

Congress has not fully funded HAVA. The States are $724 million short in the promised Federal funds for requirements grants and an additional $74 million short in disability access grants. It is my intent to offer an amendment to the Treasury-Transportation-HUD Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2007 to fully fund the requirement grants to States under HAVA, when that bill comes to the Senate floor for debate. But even the HAVA minimum requirements are only a first step to addressing the continuing impediments faced by voters across this Nation.

To address additional election administration deficiencies, I introduced legislation in January of last year, S. 17, the Voting Opportunity and Technology Enhancement Rights Act of 2005, or the VOTER Act. The Voting Opportunity and Technology Enhancement Rights Act of 2005, or the VOTER Act, builds on the reforms begun by HAVA, and adds to those reforms, by including the following: providing every eligible American, regardless of where they live in the world or where they find themselves on election day, the right to cast a National Federal Write- In Absentee Ballot in Federal elections: requiring States to provide for election day registration; requiring States to provide a minimum required number of voting systems and poll workers for each polling place on election day and during early voting; requiring States to count a provisional ballot for Federal office cast within the State by an otherwise eligible voter, notwithstanding the polling place in which the ballot is cast; requiring that all States provide voters a voter-verified ballot with a choice of at least 4 formats for recording their verification: a paper record; an audio record; a pictorial record; and an electronic record or other means which is fully accessible to the disabled, including the blind and visually impaired; requiring States to provide public notice of any registration list purges not later than 45 days before a Federal election; allowing voters to attest to their citizenship and age on voter registration forms; and providing additional Federal funds to States to implement these new requirements.

Once Congress has completed its action on the Voting Rights Act, it is imperative that the Senate turn its attention to these further election administration reforms. As the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which has jurisdiction over election reform issues, I look forward to that debate and the action of the Senate to ensure that every eligible American voter has an equal opportunity to cast a ballot and have that ballot counted, regardless of color or class, gender or age, disability or native language, party or precinct, or the resources of the community in which they live.

I am very grateful to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the NAACP. They were such strong supporters of the Help America Vote Act. That bill passed the Senate by a vote of 92 to 2 after a lengthy debate. We authorized close to $4 billion to the States to allow them to improve voting systems.

It is not a perfect bill, but it is a major step forward. In the coming weeks, when we will have appropriations matters before us, and as I said, I will be offering amendments to fully fund the HAVA bill and other such changes as I have offered in separate legislation to strengthen that particular effort. But it was important on this bill that we not complicate this important piece of legislation with modifications to the HAVA bill or additional ideas to improve voting access in this country. But we need to continue to work at it. It is unfortunate that in our country in too many of our elections the right to vote and have your vote counted depends upon the economic circumstances of the county in which you reside. That must change when it comes to Federal elections. My hope is we made a major step forward with the HAVA bill, and we continue to work at this on a bipartisan basis.

As was said many years ago by Thomas Paine, the right to vote is the right upon which all other rights depend. If we don't get this one right, then all the other rights we depend upon as American citizens are in jeopardy. The Voting Rights Act speaks to that claim more than two centuries ago, that the right to vote is the right upon which all other rights depend. What a great message that would be to the American public that we still understand this Nation has yet to achieve the perfection that its Founders designed, but each generation strives to make it a more perfect union. Passage of this bill today will be a step in that direction.

I urge my colleagues to join me in achieving a unanimous vote to reauthorize the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years. In 1965, a bipartisan coalition of Senators came together to pass this historic bill for the first time. Today, passage of this act is vital to bring about the day for America envisioned by those for which it is named. Coretta Scott King, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and countless others worked tirelessly to guarantee the ability of all Americans to exercise their right to vote. Mr. President, we honor their work today by passing this important legislation. Thank you. I yield the floor.

I thank my colleague from Maryland for those kind words.

Mr. President, if you are a student of history, this is a moment that you should reflect on and savor. Just a short time ago, I came to the floor and sat in the back row and listened as Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts spoke. I wanted to be here to see it because Senator Ted Kennedy was one of the few who was a Member of the Senate when the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, more than 40 years ago. He recounted the struggle that led to the passage of that legislation--and it was a struggle. He talked about President Lyndon Baines Johnson coming back to Capitol Hill, with which he was so familiar as a Member of the Senate, and just a few feet away from where I am standing, in one of the small rooms known as the President's Room, signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I wanted to come and hear Ted Kennedy tell that story because I do appreciate it--not just as history but because of what that meant to America. Some say it was the most significant civil rights legislation in our history. It is hard to argue that it was not because if Americans don't have the right to vote, they don't have the most basic right that we appreciate and treasure as American citizens.

On the day that President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he said it was one of the most monumental laws in the history of American freedom. And then he said:

Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory

that's ever been won on any battlefield. Today we strike away

the last major shackle of fierce and ancient bonds.

Those beautiful words were quoted in the autobiography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They are a reminder that what we are about today is not just another piece of legislation. It is only 12 or 13 pages long-- small by Senate standards--but what it does is make another commitment by our generation to the same basic values and principles that guided this Congress to pass the first Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In August of last year, I was invited to Atlanta, GA, to represent my caucus of the Senate to march with civil rights leaders and ordinary people to celebrate the 40th anniversary of that Voting Rights Act. I was proud to march in the footsteps of civil rights giants, to celebrate a bill that has often been called the most significant civil rights law ever passed by Congress.

It has broad support today. Yesterday, in my Senate Judiciary Committee it passed unanimously, with a bipartisan vote. That is a great tribute to that committee and where America's thinking is today on Capitol Hill. But it was bitterly fought in 1965. People died for that law. Civil rights workers James Cheney, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and so many others were murdered simply because they had the courage to step up and say every American has the right to vote.

It has been so long ago, it sounds like ancient history, and you may be puzzled to think: People would give their lives? Ordinary people would die over this, over this battle? The answer is yes. Black, White, and brown Americans came forward and said it was worth dying for because it really was the cornerstone of America's democracy.

Just a few years ago, I made a trip down South, my first step to Selma, AL. When the civil rights march at Selma took place, I was a student here in Washington. I sat around in my apartment with several other students and we talked about getting in a car and driving down to Selma and being part of that march. I remember it like it was yesterday. I couldn't get away from my job, I had other excuses, and I didn't go. I have thought about that so many times, how I wished I had been there at that moment, to have been part of that historic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, but I missed it and regretted it ever since.

Three years ago, Congressman John Lewis, from the State of Georgia, invited me, Senator Brownback of Kansas, and others to join him in a little commemorative pilgrimage to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Early one Sunday morning we got up and drove over to Selma and John Lewis and Sam Brownback and I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

John Lewis was the perfect person to bring us on that pilgrimage because he had been there on that bloody day when the first march took place. When we went there on that Sunday morning, it was quiet and peaceful. But he marched us down to the very spot where the Alabama State Troopers turned and started beating him--beating him unconscious. He fell to the ground and nearly died. But he survived and that cause survived and today John Lewis is a Congressman.

What does that have to do with this debate? Just last week, Congressman John Lewis spoke in the House about the history of the Voting Rights Act, and here is what he said:

When we marched from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, it was

dangerous. It was a matter of life and death. I was beaten, I

had a concussion at the bridge. I almost died. I gave blood,

but some of my colleagues gave their very lives.

It is good for us to reflect on that and to value what John Lewis and his courage meant to America and so many others, and why this bill at this moment is important for America. We honor the legacy of civil rights heroes by extending the Voting Rights Act provisions that would expire in just a short time.

The bill itself is named after three extraordinary civil rights heroes: Coretta Scott King, who continued her husband's leadership of America's movement for racial justice and human rights; Rosa Parks, what a brave lady, who ignited the Montgomery Alabama bus boycott; and Fannie Lou Hamer, the sharecropper who became a civil rights champion. She was nearly beaten to death trying to register to vote. And her famous declaration? Fannie Lou Hamer said, ``I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.''

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the Voting Rights Act by a vote of 390 to 33. It was a proud moment for that Chamber. In his autobiography, Dr. Martin Luther King reflects on this Voting Rights Act, and this is what Dr. King wrote:

When President Johnson declared that Selma, AL, is joined

in American history with Lexington, Concord, and Appomattox,

he honored not only our embattled Negroes, but the

overwhelming majority of the nation, Negro and white. The

victory in Selma is now being written in the Congress. Before

long, more than a million Negroes will be new voters and

psychologically, new people. Selma is a shining moment in the

conscience of man. If the worst in American life lurked in

the dark streets of Selma, the best of American democratic

instincts arose from across the nation to overcome it.

What powerful and hopeful words.

It is wrong for us to equate racism and prejudice with the South in America. Sadly, it has touched every corner of our great Nation. Every one of us in our towns and communities and villages, North and South, East and West, have struggled with some form of racism in the course of our history.

In the 1960s, Illinois fielded its first African-American candidate, a woman named Fannie Jones from East St. Louis, IL, my hometown, who ran for clerk of the Illinois Supreme Court. She lost. It wasn't even close. But she was the first to try to run statewide.

Then fast-forward. By 1978, Illinois elected its first African- American statewide, Roland Burris of Chicago, as State comptroller.

Now bring it to the present day, and I am honored that my State, Illinois, the land of Lincoln, can claim that the two biggest vote getters in its history are African Americans: my close friend, Secretary of State Jesse White, and my colleague, in whom I have such great pride, Barack Obama the two biggest vote getters in the land of Lincoln. It says a lot about how far we have come just in my short political lifetime.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to reauthorize this bill. Today, the Members of the Senate have an opportunity to make history by passing this strong, bipartisan extension of the Voting Rights Act. A lot of people argued when this debate began that it was unnecessary. Voting rights? Where is that a problem in America, they said? I wish it were not a problem.

Listen again to what Congressman John Lewis said last week:

Yes, we have made some progress. We have come a distance.

We are no longer met with bullwhips, fire hoses, and violence

when we attempt to register and vote. But the sad fact is,

the sad truth is, discrimination still exists, and that is

why we still need the Voting Rights Act. . . . We cannot

separate the debate today from our history and the past we

have traveled.

We had hearings before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, more hearings than I have ever seen on any single piece of legislation: 21 hearings on the Voting Rights Act over the past 9 months, 12 in the House, 9 in the Senate. Over 100 witnesses appeared or submitted statements for the Record, thousands of pages of reports and evidence, so there would be no question about the need for this bill.

I attended and listened to some of these hearings. They were contentious. People were debating whether we needed a Voting Rights Act or whether this was some vestige of America's past which had no relevance today. But the evidence shows that attempts at voter discrimination are not simply a chapter from our history; they continue to threaten us and our democracy today. We have made progress as a nation over the past few decades, but discrimination endures, many times in more subtle forms.

A recent example was in the State of Georgia which passed two different voter ID laws over the past year, over the strong objections of the African Americans who live in that State. They argued that this new Georgia law would diminish the voting rights of the minorities, the poor, the elderly, and those without formal education. Both of Georgia's laws were struck down by Federal courts. The first law was determined to constitute a modern day poll tax, an unconstitutional infringement on the fundamental right to vote. The second law, slightly improved, was struck down last week by a Federal judge who ruled it was discriminatory and unconstitutional.

This is what the New York Times said recently about ``Georgia's new poll tax,'' as they call it:

In 1966, the Supreme Court held that the poll tax was

unconstitutional. Nearly 40 years later, Georgia still is

charging people to vote, this time with a new voter ID law

that requires many people without driver's licenses--a group

that is disproportionately poor, black, and elderly--to pay

$20 or more for a state ID card. Georgia went ahead with this

even though there is not a single place in the entire city of

Atlanta where the cards are sold. The law is a national

disgrace.

And a reminder that laws which we now look back on with embarrassment, laws that required African Americans to pay a poll tax before they could vote, laws which had literacy tests and constitutional tests before a person can vote, and say: That is the past; thank goodness it is behind us. This Georgia law which imposed a new requirement for a voter ID, which would have cost many voters $20, was, in the view of the Federal court system, a new poll tax.

Unfortunately, it is part of a pattern. Since 1982, the Federal Justice Department has objected to nearly 100 proposed changes to election procedures in Georgia alone on the grounds that the changes would have a discriminatory impact on minority voters. The Justice Department has sent Federal observers to monitor nearly twice the number of elections in Georgia since 1982 as it did between 1965 and 1982.

Let me add again, though I am giving examples from Georgia, I do not stand here as a northerner by definition and argue we only find discrimination in the South. Discrimination and race has haunted our Nation from coast to coast. It is naive and wrong to believe it is only a southern phenomenon, but the fact is, in this situation, in Georgia, repeatedly minority voters have been challenged and have been denied the right to vote.

Both of the protections, the requirement the Justice Department approve changes to electoral procedures in States with histories of voter discrimination and Federal monitoring of elections in such jurisdictions, are only possible because of the sections of the Voting Rights Act that must be renewed.

Let's take another case that is not in the South. Eighty-three percent of Buffalo County, South Dakota, is Native American, but they were packed into a single State legislative district. Non-Natives, who make up 17 percent of the population of the county, controlled two out of three seats on the county commission. Buffalo County was successfully sued in the year 2003 in South Dakota. The case was settled by a consent decree. In that consent decree, Buffalo County, South Dakota, admitted that its plan was discriminatory and agreed to submit to Federal supervision of future change.

Once again, it was one of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act which would expire without our action today--section 5--that entitled the U.S. Justice Department to protect the rights of Americans to vote in South Dakota.

In another case in 2004, a Federal judge invalidated South Dakota's redistricting plan. In her opinion, the judge described the State's long history of discrimination against Native Americans, including some very recent examples. The judge quoted a South Dakota State legislator who, in expressing opposition to a bill that would have made it easier for Native Americans to register to vote, said in the year 2002:

I'm not sure we want that sort of person in the polling

place.

The record is thorough and clear. Voter discrimination continues. It remains a threat to American democracy. We need to pass this renewal of the Voting Rights Act. We need to step back as a nation and ask some important questions, not pat ourselves on the back on a bipartisan basis for passing this.

Why is it so many voting machines in cities where the poorest people live don't work? Why is it people are denied their choices on the ballots because they are stuck with voting machinery that is antiquated or just plain dysfunctional? Why is it those who are challenged time and time again turn out to be the poor, the dispossessed? Why is it they have the toughest time when it comes to voting in America, if this is truly going to be a land of equal opportunity?

There were attempts in the House and Senate to weaken this Voting Rights Act and I am glad they did not prevail. I am glad what we have before the Senate today is a strong, clear version of renewing this law. I want it to pass, but I don't want the conversation to end at that point. I hope we will accept the responsibility to challenge any State and to challenge even ourselves if we are creating unnecessary and unfair obstacles to voters who are trying to exercise the most basic right they have as Americans.

Whether you are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, we need to be united in supporting the Voting Rights Act. This law, above all others, should be above politics and partisanship. We need to make sure that today in the Senate, we are all on the right side of history. The Voting Rights Act has served as a beacon of our democracy for over 40 years. It should not be allowed to expire until voting discrimination has expired.

When it passed in 1965, it was because of the moral and physical courage of people such as Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and so many others. Passing the Voting Rights Act also required the persistence and courage of Members of Congress.

No one in the Senate pushed longer and harder for voting rights for all Americans than a man named Paul Douglas of Illinois. My connection to the Senate began as a college student in 1966, a year after this law passed. I was an intern in the office of Senator Paul Douglas. I had the privilege to work in his office. I guess I was lucky in that he needed me every day. You cannot say that very often for an intern, but he needed me because Senator Douglas was a veteran of the Marine Corps, fought in World War II, and had lost the use of his left arm in combat. He insisted on signing every letter, so every night they would stack up all the mail that had been typed by all the people in his office, and Senator Douglas would sit at the long table, starting

at 5 o'clock, signing the letters, making little notes, making corrections. I got to sit next to him and pull the letters away. I was dazzled. There I was within a foot or two of this great man who had done so much.

He came back after fighting the war to fight for the rights of those who were being discriminated against. He gave a lot of political blood in the Senate fighting for civil rights. If you read the LBJ books, stories of Lyndon Baines Johnson, you know that in the early days, before Lyndon Johnson became the great champion of the civil rights that he was in his late career, he was in pitched battle with the likes of Estes Kefauver, Hubert Humphrey, and Paul Douglas over the issue of civil rights, but the day finally came in 1965 when the Voting Rights Act passed. Senator Paul Douglas said it was his proudest achievement as a Senator.

Today, American troops are risking their lives--and many have given their lives--to secure the right to vote for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The absolute least we can do is to have the courage to protect the right to vote for all Americans by giving resounding, bipartisan support to the renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I add that I share the views of my colleague from Arizona. Like he, I represent a State that is covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights Act which is one of the sections that is being reauthorized today, hopefully. I thus paid close attention to the changes being made in that section.

Like my colleague from Arizona, I supported the provision that effectively instructs the Justice Department to refuse to preclear a voting practice that is motivated by a discriminatory, unconstitutional purpose. I also agree this is all this change does. It does not authorize the Justice Department to define for itself what is a ``discriminatory purpose.'' The Constitution and the courts have already done that, and it is that constitutional

definition that is being incorporated in this legislation.

That standard bars discrimination against a racial group, and it does not require discrimination in favor of any racial group. Thus, it does not require those drawing electoral maps to create misshapen districts simply in order to create as many majority-minority districts as possible. Nor does it require that minority voters be placed as often as possible in districts where candidates of the party they support will prevail.

The equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution does not say all citizens are equal, but that some are more equal than others. Nor should the Voting Rights Act say that. The Voting Rights Act should not be read to require creation of so-called coalition districts that produce a Democratic or a Republican representative, as the case may be. I think that would raise serious constitutional questions if we adopted a free-flowing definition of purpose--or authorized the U.S. Department of Justice to invent one--that is untethered from the Constitution itself. I think this is sufficiently clear from the bill's incorporation of constitutional terms of art that I am confident this is how the provision will be applied by the Justice Department and by the courts.

Mr. President, I would simply add to the comments of the assistant majority leader that I, too, am glad that we have eliminated any risk in Georgia v. Ashcroft, and section 5 would be applied to require preservation of anything other than districts that allow naturally occurring minority-group majorities to elect minority candidates. Locking into place so-called coalition or influence districts would wreak havoc with the redistricting process and would stretch the Voting Rights Act beyond the scope of the Congress's authority under the 14th amendment.

Mr. President, I have some additional remarks that I would like to make on this important legislation.

Forty-one years ago, when signing the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, Lyndon Johnson, the President of the United States, a former member of the Senate whose seat I am privileged to hold, described the act's passage as ``a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.'' President Johnson's words captured the importance of the act's passage. It was a hard-fought victory at a tense time in American history.

It is no secret why the Voting Rights Act was necessary. It was adopted at the height of the civil rights movement, when numerous jurisdictions throughout the United States had intentionally, systematically disenfranchised Blacks and other minorities from the electoral process.

As a witness before the Senate Judiciary Committee noted, a Senate report from 1965 found that in every voting discrimination suit brought against Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, both the district court and the Court of Appeals found ``discriminatory use of tests and devices''--devices such as literacy, knowledge, and moral character tests. The Senate concluded that these were not ``isolated deviations from the norm'' but, instead, ``had been pursuant to a pattern or a practice of racial discrimination.'' Such practices had driven down to 29.3 percent the average registration rate for Black citizens in these States--29.3 percent.

Worse yet, violence and brutality were common. In 1961, a Black voter registration drive worker in McComb, MS was beaten by a cousin of the sheriff; a worker was ordered out of the registrar's office at gunpoint and then hit with a pistol; a Black sympathizer was murdered by a State representative; another Black who asked for Justice Department protection to testify at the inquest was beaten and killed 3 years later; a White activist's eye was gouged out; and, finally, 12 student nonviolent coordinating committee workers and local supporters were fined and sentenced to substantial terms in jail. And those were just some of the many terrible incidents that occurred.

This type of bigotry and hatred at the polls, coupled with escalating violence and even the murder of activists, is the backdrop against which the Voting Rights Act was adopted--permanently enshrining into law the long-unfulfilled promise of citizenship and democratic participation for all Americans as guaranteed by the 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The permanence of the Voting Rights Act is something that I am afraid is sometimes misunderstood or misstated in the popular press. The act's core provision found that section 2 prohibits the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race or color.

That provision is permanent. That provision will never expire, and we are not addressing this permanent provision by the reauthorization that we will vote on today.

Instead, we are addressing what at the time was a temporary, 5-year period where provisions were adopted to subject certain jurisdictions to Federal oversight of the voting laws and procedures until the intent of the Voting Rights Act was accomplished. This provision, section 5, along with later-added provisions designed to protect voters from discrimination based upon limited English proficiency, has been renewed several times since it was originally passed and will expire in the summer of 2007. Those are the provisions which we are addressing here today and which this vote today will reauthorize.

Today, we are considering the renewal of these provisions at a time when we can look back with some pride as a country and say that the Voting Rights Act has fulfilled its promise. It worked.

Today, we live in a different--albeit still imperfect--world. Today, no one can claim that the kind of systemic, invidious practices that plagued our election systems 40 years ago still exist in America. Today, the voter registration rates among Blacks, for example, in the covered jurisdictions is over 68.1 percent, as this chart indicates, higher than the 62.2 percent found in noncovered jurisdictions.

Let me repeat that, Mr. President, because I think it is important. Earlier, you heard me say that as a result of the violence and the discrimination against Black voters in three Southern States before the Voting Rights Act was passed, voter registration rates for African Americans was about 29 percent. But today, 40 years later, as a result of the fact that the Voting Rights Act has accomplished its purpose, we now see voting registration rates nationwide at 62.2 percent. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that the rate of voter registration in those areas that were covered by section 5, because they had a history of discrimination and violation of the voting rights of minority voters, is actually higher than the rest of the country--68.1 percent--as opposed to 62.2 percent for the noncovered jurisdictions.

A review of the voter registration data since the act's original passage shows that the covered jurisdictions have demonstrated equal or higher voter registration rates among Black voters as noncovered jurisdictions since the mid-1970s.

I realize, though, this is not the only measure of the performance of the act. Another important indicator of its success is the continual decline--almost to the point of statistically negligible numbers--of objections issued by the Department of Justice to plans submitted under section 5 for pre clearance. You can see on this chart that I have demonstrated here, going back to 1982, to 2005--and again, this is for the nine covered jurisdictions--this is what we are focusing on with this reauthorization. In those nine covered jurisdictions that were required under section 5 to submit their election changes for preclearance, you see that in 1982, for 2,848 submissions, there were 67 objections to those changes or a rate of roughly 2.32 percent. But if you jump down to 2005--let's go to 1995--it shows that this is really a bipartisan success under both Republican and Democrat Presidential administrations. In 1995, you can see that out of 3,999 submissions, requests for pre clearance under section 5, there were only 19 objections as required through the required procedures.

So you see actually the number of objections dropping from 2.32 percent to, in 1995, under one-half of 1 percent. And the good news is, it just keeps getting better. In 2005, there were 3,811 submissions, and only 1 objection for preclearance of a change in voting practices or procedures in the covered jurisdictions. So I would submit that both the voter registration rates for African American voters in the covered jurisdictions, and the plummeting, really, of objections sustained to submissions requesting preclearance under

section 5, are strong and compelling evidence that, in fact, the Voting Rights Act has achieved--largely achieved--the purposes that Congress had hoped for and that no doubt millions of people who had previously been disenfranchised had prayed for.

The evidence demonstrates the continued improvement of access to office for minorities. The statistics in the House record indicate that hundreds of minorities are now serving--not just getting to vote, they are actually serving in elected office, accomplishing again one of the important purposes of the Voting Rights Act. Indeed, in Georgia, minorities are elected at rates proportionate to or higher than the numbers proportionate to the general population would otherwise indicate. While Georgia's population is 28.7 percent African American, 30.7 percent of its delegation to the United States House of Representatives, and 26.5 percent of the officials elected statewide are African American, a remarkable accomplishment.

Black candidates in Mississippi have achieved similar success. The State's population is 36.3 percent African American, and 29.5 percent of its representatives in the State House, and 25 percent of its delegation in the United States House of Representatives are African American.

In light of this strong indication that the act has largely achieved the purposes that Congress had intended, of course, the logical question before us is whether these provisions under section 5 should be reauthorized. The Judiciary Committee hearings were enlightening on this point, and I want to congratulate Chairman Specter for readily ceding to requests that were made to have a complete record so that not only Congress but the courts that may later examine this record can see what the facts are. Senator Specter worked hard to hold a sufficient number of fair and balanced hearings, but given our busy schedule on the Senate floor, that was not always easy to accomplish. However, I think it might have been beneficial for the long-term viability and success of the Voting Rights Act had we engaged in serious, reasoned deliberation over some of the suggested possible improvements, some suggested by our witnesses--improvements that would underscore the act's original purpose. It would modernize it to reflect today's reality. It would possibly expand the coverage of section 5 to jurisdictions where recent abuses have taken place or, perhaps, have improved the so-called bailout procedures for those jurisdictions that had a successful record of remedying, indeed eliminating, discrimination when it comes to voting rights.

One idea that was offered was to update the coverage formula. I don't know if that is a good idea, but I would like to know. Some suggest that such an update would gut the act. I, for one, certainly don't want to see that happen. I don't want to see the act gutted. But I am skeptical that this would be the result. The amendment that was voted on in the House, for example, would have updated the coverage trigger to the most recent three Presidential elections from the current point, or trigger, of 1964, 1968, and 1972 elections.

As I understand it, the map, after an update to cover the most recent three Presidential elections, would look something like this. In other words, rather than the nine covered jurisdictions, you would see jurisdictions around the country, both at the State and local level-- primarily at the local level--that would focus on the places where the problems really do exist and where the record demonstrates with some justification for the assertion of Federal power and intrusion into the local and State electoral processes.

If this is an accurate reflection of the effects of updating the trigger to the most recent three Presidential elections, it certainly changes the map. But I suggest, just looking at this, it hardly guts it.

It would have also been beneficial for us to have had a full discussion of ways to improve the act to ensure its important provisions were applied in a congruent and proportional way, something the Supreme Court will take into consideration when it considers the renewed act.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted overwhelmingly to extend the expiring provisions of the act and adopt several substantial revisions included by the House, so I think it is important to comment on the House revisions to the act. In other words, we are not just reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act as it existed previously, there have been changes made. So I think it is important for us to identify those changes and reflect on them for a moment.

There has been some debate about the meaning of these provisions. My understanding is that the purpose of these provisions is fairly straightforward, and I think the House legislative history reflects this; that is, the purpose is to ensure minorities are not prevented from holding elected offices in bodies such as Congress and ensure that no intentional, unconstitutional discrimination is allowed to proceed. It is important that our understanding about these provisions be clear so that their application will be likewise clear.

I think the colloquy that we had on the Senate floor just a few moments ago helps to make that as clear as we possibly can.

In short, the Voting Rights Act is simply the most important and most effective civil rights legislation ever passed, bar none. The extension of the expiring provisions is important for the continued protection of voting rights, even though it would have been preferable and even possibly constitutionally advisable for us to review the application of the act's preclearance and other provisions.

Unfortunately, the act's language was a bit of a foregone conclusion, prohibiting the kind of debate and discussion and perhaps amendment process that might have been helpful to protect the act against future legal challenges.

Few issues are as fundamental to our system of democracy and the promise of equal justice under law as the Voting Rights Act. I support reauthorization of the expiring provisions because the purpose of the Voting Rights Act is genuine, its goals are noble, and its success, as I hope to have demonstrated, is unparalleled.

But I do want to say in conclusion that I share the concerns expressed by Chief Justice Roberts in the most recent redistricting case that has been heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. I hope the day will come when we will no longer, to use his words, be ``divvying us up by race.''

It is my sincere hope that we will move beyond distinctions based on race in our policymaking, lest we, in the words of Justice Anthony Kennedy, make ``the offensive and demeaning assumption that voters of a particular race, because of their race, think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls.

The question in the end is, Is this bill that we will vote on today the very best possible product?

I would have to say the answer to that is, apparently not.

In response to the question, is this the very best that we can do at this time?'' I would have to conclude, yes, it is. And I support it for that reason.

I see my distinguished colleague from New York on the Senate floor.

I yield the floor to her and anyone else who seeks an opportunity to speak.