Henry C. "Hank" Johnson, Jr.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time, and I rise in opposition to this resolution.

For decades, MAGA Republicans have systematically chipped away at the impartiality of our third branch. They have already delegitimized our judiciary, yet they now stand before the American people pretending to be guardians of judicial integrity.

Today's blatant attempt to rewrite history would be laughable if the consequences were not so dangerous for our democracy, but history matters. The American people deserve to understand how we got to this moment.

To understand how we get here, we must follow both the money and the machinery behind the modern conservative legal movement.

The Roberts Court is the culmination of a decades-long crusade by Republicans to concentrate power in the

hands of the few at the expense of the many by packing the United States Supreme Court and the lower Federal courts as well.

Wealthy donors and corporate interests led by The Federalist Society spent billions of dollars to pack the judiciary with rightwing, conservative, corporate, polluting-serving judges and justices, and nowhere is the success of this decades-long Court-packing effort more visible than at the Supreme Court where a carefully curated, appointed, and conservative supermajority now delivers the conservative outcomes this movement spent billions of dollars to achieve, and achieve they did.

In the last several years, the Roberts Court opened the floodgates to unlimited dark money in our political system, empowering billionaires and oligarchs and other powerful special interests to accomplish through the Supreme Court what they can't accomplish through the legislative branch, and that is to drown out the voices of ordinary Americans.

Abraham Lincoln once said that: ``This government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.'' Yet that seems to be the vision for America that Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Alito, and the other MAGA majority members on the Court believe.

Where some enjoy easy access to the ballot box while others are forced to overcome legal barriers, this is not America. They want to make it such that the voices of those who look like Justice Thomas are quieter.

Our Nation is now in Jim Crow 2.0. We are a nation where the right to vote can, once again, be diluted, restricted, or simply ignored and where the voices of rich and powerful people carry more weight than the voice of ordinary Americans; but, particularly, Americans who look like Clarence Thomas, who no longer have the equal opportunity to elect the Representatives of their choice.

The American people deserve a judiciary that serves our democracy, not a narrow ideological agenda that only benefits the rich and powerful.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to sound the alarm on skyrocketing healthcare costs in this country. Americans all across the country, including Georgia's Fourth Congressional District, are having a hard time and making very difficult decisions. They have to decide whether it is more important to pay for their groceries--and don't get me started on the cost of gas to go to work--or to provide their family with healthcare.

It is estimated that healthcare will cost more than $26 trillion through the year 2036, making healthcare the largest category of Federal spending. This Republican rubber-stamped Congress has failed to advance extensions to the enhanced premium tax credits, causing more families to have to make these difficult decisions--decisions we should not have to make in a country like this, but don't take my word for it.

For example, my constituent, Julia has a 34-year-old son that has a brain condition that makes it difficult for him to work. He needs brain specialists and prescriptions to prevent him from having seizures, debilitating headaches, and memory loss, but without healthcare subsidies, his health insurance costs rose 400 percent this year.

Because of the high cost of healthcare for her son, Julia, who is responsible for paying all of the bills, has no savings. Extending the subsidies would have helped her put food on the table and make ends meet.

Another example is my constituent, Vivian from Tucker, who lives with chronic psoriatic arthritis and suffers from vision problems. Her medication costs $4,000 a month.

Without extensions of the subsidies, she and her husband's healthcare premiums skyrocketed from $50 to $1,300 a month, a 2,400 percent increase. That is a cost they simply cannot afford. Vivian said ObamaCare saved their lives.

Lastly, I would like to recognize a student at Georgia State University named Melani, whose parents' monthly premiums went from $250 to $850 a month, a 250 percent increase. As a student, she receives health insurance through her school, but her family's premiums tripled, making their coverage financially impossible.

Her parents, who are in their late fifties and early sixties, had to cancel their insurance because the costs are simply too high. The current tax credits are no longer sufficient to meaningfully offset rising insurance prices she told me.

Without adequate support, Melani's parents are forced to go uninsured and face the tax penalty, despite desperately wanting to keep their coverage.

Mr. Speaker, with Trump's war of choice in the Middle East and rising prices at home, Republicans have turned their backs on the very people who sent them to the Halls of Congress.

I believe that healthcare is a fundamental human right. When a loved one is in the hospital, the only question that should be asked is: ``How do we get them better?'' not, ``How much is it going to cost?''

I will continue to speak up and speak out about these issues and fight for the people of Georgia's Fourth Congressional District.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Virginia for yielding, and I thank her for anchoring this CBC Special Order hour. I also shout out to the leadership of CBC's chair, Yvette Clarke, for the work that she is doing.

Mr. Speaker, I can't breathe. I am not saying those words to talk about what George Floyd said about 6 years ago before he was choked to death. Those words are not from him. Those are the words that democracy is uttering, is crying: I can't breathe. I can't breathe because MAGA controls the Presidency. MAGA controls the House, the Senate, and MAGA controls the United States Supreme Court. MAGA has a trifecta.

I can't breathe. Democracy can't breathe. For years, there has been a steady effort by the United States Supreme Court to overrule and get rid of the Voting Rights Act. They started with Shelby County, where they paralyzed the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act. Then they went to Brnovich several years later and made it more difficult to sue for relief under the Voting Rights Act. Then April 29, I think it was, of this year, they nailed the final nail in the coffin of the Voting Rights Act by gutting section 2. They did it and said that it was a denial of equal protection to White folks for racist legislators and legislatures to have to draw districts that offered or enabled Black people and communities of interest to have an opportunity to elect a Representative of their choice.

They said that that was the denial of equal protection to White folks. In other words, political gerrymandering trumps the ability of Black people to be able to elect the Representative of their choice.

And they did that premised on the conclusion--the false conclusion that we are now living in a post-racial society, so there is no longer a need for the Voting Rights Act. So it was a fit of judicial activism, a predictable fit of judicial activism.

We have got to do something about this United States Supreme Court. We have got to do something about this MAGA legislature. We have got to do something about the head MAGA at the White House. We do that through exercising our right to vote.

We shall do so in November. We shall do so in 2026, and we will be prepared for 2030 redistricting. We will be prepared for what happens. We are going to take your foot off of the neck of democracy, and it is not going to be just us. It is going to be right-thinking people around this country who are going to join us.

That is why I appreciate us leading the way, and I look forward to better days ahead. We shall not stop. We won't slow down. You are not going to drive us off. You are not going to kick us out. We are going to be here. This is our country. And we are going to live in it together, like it or not.