F. Sensenbrenner

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, yes, I agree with that.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, this is a poison pill amendment. If this amendment is adopted, the supporters of this legislation will withdraw their support, and the extension to the Voting Rights Act would be defeated. So from a practical standpoint, the amendment should be opposed; but on a substantive standpoint, it should be opposed as well. A recent survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted on the Voting Rights Act's provision requiring bilingual ballots for taxpaying legal citizens under certain circumstances. Let me make this clear. The amendments in the Voting Rights Act have nothing to do with illegal immigrants voting. Illegal immigrants are not eligible to vote. We are dealing with people who are United States citizens. And United States citizens ought to have their right to vote protected even if they are not proficient in English. When those surveyed were asked specifically whether they supported or opposed the renewal of the Voting Rights Act with bilingual ballot provisions, 70 percent of the registered voters supported or strongly supported a renewal bill that contained the bilingual ballot provisions for taxpaying legal citizens. I ask the membership of the House to stand on the side of those 77 percent, an overwhelming majority. When those polled were asked specifically what they thought of the part of the VRA that required States and counties where over 5 percent of the citizens are not fluent in English to provide assistance in their native language, 65 percent either strongly favored or favored those provisions. Even though section 203 affects only 12 percent of the country, it was enacted for sound reasons and is still needed to remove barriers to voting by legal taxpaying citizens who do not speak English well enough to participate in the election process. According to the 2000 Census, most of the people who are potential beneficiaries of section 203 assistance are native-born legal citizens, meaning they are not immigrants who were naturalized, they are people who are citizens because they were born in the United States of America. The Judiciary Committee's records shows that adults who want to learn English experience long wait times to enroll in English as a second language literacy centers. And, once enrolled, learning English takes adult citizens several years to even obtain a fundamental understanding of the English language. Even after completing literacy classes, it is often not enough to understand complex ballots. I strongly support the proposition that Americans be fluent in the English language. However, effectively denying them their right to cast ballots that they cannot comprehend will not advance this goal, but will frustrate it. Section 203 was enacted to remedy the history of educational disparities which have led to high illiteracy rates and low voter turnout. These disparities still continue to exist. As of the year 2000, three-fourths of the 3 million to 3.5 million students who are native-born citizens were considered to be English language learners, meaning the students don't speak English well enough to understand the basic English curriculum. ELL students lag significantly behind native English speakers and are twice as likely to fail graduation tests. California has over 1.5 million ELLs, Texas 570,000, Florida 25,000, and New York over 230,000. The intricate complexity of many ballot initiatives cannot be understood by those who understand minimal English. Chris Norby, the elections supervisor for Orange County, California, testified that many ballot initiatives include triple negatives that confuse even fluent English speakers. In California, the June 6, 2006 ballot was written for those at the 12th through 14th grade comprehension and reading levels. And let me point out that this type of assistance is most critical in those States that have lots of referendum questions on the ballot. It is pretty easy to determine a vote for which candidate one prefers by looking at the names and marking the ballot in the appropriate way; but with the initiative questions and the referendum questions on the ballot, those have been written in many cases by Philadelphia lawyers and it is real hard to understand the true meaning of the question so that one can cast the proper vote to reflect their sentiments. The amendment will also hurt the elderly who are exempt from the naturalizations test language proficiency requirements and are not required to learn any English whatsoever before they become legal naturalized citizens. Current law allows the jurisdiction to get out from coverage under section 203 if it shows the D.C. Federal court that the applicable language minority population's literacy rate is at the national average or above. So teach the people how to read and you are out from underneath it. If they don't know how to read English, then they should be under it. In this way, section 203 provides an incentive for jurisdictions to develop successful ways of helping non-English speakers learn English. Adopting this amendment would remove that incentive and subvert the goals it purportedly advances. Furthermore, the assistance authorized under section 208, which is the provision that authorizes voters to be accompanied into the polling booth under the Voting Rights Act, does not provide adequate protection for many language minority voters. With the increased number of linguistically isolated households in this country, seeking assistance of a family member is not feasible. The assistance provided by section 203 is the only certain form of assistance that language minority citizens can rely on to exercise the right to vote and enjoy autonomy and independence in the voting booth. I would like to remind members that 2 weeks ago, on June 28, the House soundly rejected on a bipartisan basis and by a vote of 167-254 an effort to defund the Department of Justice's efforts to enforce section 203 during the consideration of the Commerce Justice State appropriations bill. I believe that one of the cornerstones of American society is the ability to speak English. English is the language of commerce in this country, and I believe every citizen should strive to become proficient in the English language. However, punishing those who don't attain this goal and taking away the incentive for local jurisdictions to develop educational programs to increase the literacy rate above the national average is not the answer. That is why this amendment should be rejected Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all, the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is not really a 10-year reauthorization. It is a 9-year reauthorization since the Voting Rights Act's temporary provisions do not expire until August 6, 2007. So this really is kind of a little bit less than what has been advertised. The last time the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized, it was reauthorized for 25 years; and there is no reason why it should not be reauthorized for another 25 years. Minority citizens register, turn out, and cast meaningful ballots as a result of the protections extended by the Voting Rights Act. And while we have made great strides in achieving Martin Luther King's goal of having people judged by the depth of their character rather than the color of their skin, without the Voting Rights Act's being there, their vote will not be treated equally with the votes of every other citizen in that jurisdiction or of the United States of America. History has also shown that when Federal oversight is eliminated, minority voters suffer the most. And the purpose of this legislation is to protect the progress made by minority voters over the last several decades and to continue that progress for the next 25 years. The 12 hearings conducted by the Judiciary Committee and the enormous evidentiary record shows that all Voting Rights Acts violations that have occurred in covered jurisdictions support the conclusion that renewal of the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years is warranted. Anyone who votes for this amendment will have to tell their constituents why the following information and testimony did not justify the full 25-year renewal of the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The committee report makes clear ``more section 5 objections were lodged between 1982 and 2004 than were interposed between 1965 and 1982.'' So we are talking about the fact that the number of actions that have required objections in precleared States have not gone away or significantly diminished. And since 1982, the Department of Justice has objected to more than 700 voting changes that have been determined to be discriminatory. And I have talked earlier in this debate about the number of objections, both since 1982 and since 2004, that have been objected to as being discriminatory. Let me say that with the 9 years proposed in the Gohmert amendment rather than the 25 years, when this act comes up for renewal in 2016, as the gentleman from Texas wants, there will be significantly less record because it is a significantly shorter period of time. And believe me, the people who have been opposed to the Voting Rights Act, and we have heard a lot from them today and will continue to hear a lot from them, will say, look, things are getting much better. The last time it came up they had 24 years of records and it was yea big, and now let us look at this. It has not been quite as much. And believe me, a court is going to take judicial notice of that as well. Now, in the face of the current evidentiary record of abuse, it would be shortsighted and irresponsible not to reauthorize the VRA for at least as long as the last reauthorization President Reagan signed into law in 1982. Moreover, renewing the preclearance and Federal observer provisions of the Voting Rights Act for an additional 25 years is necessary to allow a meaningful change to be measured and to make eradication of discrimination in the voting process an achievable goal. Most activity under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act occurs during redistricting, which only happens every 10 years following each census. If the Voting Rights Act is not renewed for an additional 25 years, it will capture only one redistricting cycle, and that will not provide enough evidence of the past use and practice to allow Congress to make the same reasoned determination regarding renewal 10 years from now that this Congress is allowed to make on the previous record of 25 years. For this reason adopting this amendment will effectively preclude the Congress from ever reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act again because it will deny Congress the sufficiently large set of data the Supreme Court has held necessary for the Voting Rights Act to be reauthorized. Further, this amendment, if adopted, would completely nullify the current incentive the VRA provides to encourage covered jurisdictions to maintain clean voting rights records for 10 years in order to be eligible to utilize the bailout process. This amendment sends the message to covered jurisdictions that the VRA will not apply to them in the future regardless of their conduct over the next 10 years. In sum, to protect minority voting rights for decades to come, to prevent tying Congress' hands in 10 years by denying it the sufficient record on which to decide future renewals as required by the Supreme Court, and to prevent nullifying the current Voting Rights Act's incentive to maintain clean voting records for 10 years, this amendment should be soundly defeated. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, let me just set the record straight. When the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) conducted the hearings before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, he allowed nonmembers of the Judiciary Committee to come and participate in the hearings and to ask questions of the witnesses that came before the hearing. And I know that the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Westmoreland, did participate very actively. We were very happy that he came, and appreciate the contributions that he made. So we have not been exclusionary at all. And a lot of other committees simply do not allow nonmembers of the committee to participate. Mr. Chabot did. But I would like to point out that much of the impetus behind this amendment comes from Georgia. And I think the fallacy of the amendment of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) is that he wants to base coverage exclusively on voter participation and not on any other factors, and that is what the constitutional flaw is. The reason that section 5 does have the preclearance requirement is based on a number of factors, including the past history of discrimination and discriminatory voting practices. In Georgia there have been 91 objections since the last reauthorization by the Department of Justice, and seven of them have been objections that have resulted in withdrawal of voting changes since 2002. So the arguments that Georgia isn't doing all this bad stuff anymore are not borne out by the statistics of what has been submitted to the Justice Department and where preclearance has been rejected. During the general debate today, I introduced two rather extensive reports into the record from outside groups that gave the history of section 5 objections and voting rights problems in the State of Georgia since the 1982 reauthorization. Now, the amendment that Mr. Norwood has proposed is a Trojan horse. It is designed to make the section 5 protections unconstitutional. And I guess the argument that I am hearing, the result of which is that if you can't win here, jiggle the law so that it ends up being declared unconstitutional in court. This has been an important part of the Voting Rights Act. We should not run the risk of changing the formula that has met the test of time with repeated constitutional challenges. That is why the Norwood amendment should be rejected. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in 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. H.R. 9 amends and reauthorizes the Voting Rights Act for an additional 25 years, several provisions of which will expire on August 6, 2007, unless Congress acts to renew them. I was proud to lead Republican efforts to renew expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act in 1982, and I am pleased to have authored this important legislation to do the same thing a quarter century later. The Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965 to address our country's ignoble history of racial discrimination and to ensure that the rights enunciated in our Constitution become a practical reality for all. Since its 1965 enactment, the VRA has been reauthorized in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 1992, each time with strong bipartisan support. The right to vote is fundamental in our system of government, and the importance of voting rights is reflected by the fact that they are protected by five separate amendments to the Constitution, including the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendment. However, history reveals that certain States and localities have not always been faithful to the rights and protections guaranteed by the Constitution, and some have tried to disenfranchise African American and other minority voters through means ranging from violence and intimidation to subtle changes in voting rules. As a result, many minorities were unable to fully participate in the political process for nearly a century after the end of the Civil War. The VRA has dramatically reduced these discriminatory practices and transformed our Nation's electoral process and makeup of our Federal, State, and local governments. Since its enactment, the VRA has been instrumental in remedying past injustices by ensuring that States and jurisdictions with a history of discrimination address and correct those abuses, and, in some instances, stopping them from happening in the first place. Section 5 prohibits States with documented histories of racial discrimination in voting from changing election practices and processes without first submitting the changes to the Department of Justice or the District Court for the District of Columbia. Section 5 has helped ensure minority citizens in these covered jurisdictions to have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process. As a result of section 5 and other provisions of the Voting Rights Act, minority participation and elections as well as the number of minorities serving in elected positions has increased significantly, and many of our colleagues who are here today are personal embodiments of those changes. Last summer, I along with Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Conyers and Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Watt pledged to have the VRA's temporary provisions reauthorized for an additional 25 years. Over the last 7 months, the Judiciary Committee on the Constitution examined the VRA in great detail, focusing on those provisions set to expire in 2007. In addition to gathering evidence of ongoing discriminatory conduct, the subcommittee examined the impact that two Supreme Court decisions, the Bossier II and Georgia v. Ashcroft decisions, have had on section 5's ability to protect minorities from discriminatory voting changes particularly in State and congressional redistricting initiatives. Based upon the committee's record, and let me put the books of the hearings of this committee's record on the table, it is one of the most extensive considerations of any piece of legislation that the United States Congress has dealt with in the 27\1/2\ years that I have been honored to serve as a Member of this body. All of this is a part of the record that the Committee on the Constitution headed by Mr. Chabot of Ohio has assembled to show the need for the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. H.R. 9 includes language that makes it clear that a voting change motivated by any discriminatory purpose cannot be precleared, and clarifies that the purpose of the preclearance requirements is to protect the ability of minority citizens to elect their preferred candidates of choice. These changes restore section 5 to its original purpose, enabling it to better protect minority voters. In addition, H.R. 9 reauthorizes section 203 for an additional 25 years, ensuring that legal, taxpaying, language-impaired citizens are assisted in exercising their right to vote. And, in my opinion, this is particularly important in elections where ballot questions are submitted to the voters. The committee record that formed the basis for this legislation demonstrates that, while the VRA has been successful in protecting minority voters who are historically disenfranchised in certain parts of the country, our work is not yet complete. Racial discrimination in the electoral process continues to exist and threatens to undermine the progress that has been made over the last 40 years. In fact, the extensive record of continued abuse compiled by the committee over the last year, which I have put on the table here today, echoes that which preceded congressional reauthorization of the VRA in 1982, and which led me to make the following observations during the committee's consideration of the VRA reauthorization legislation then: ``Testimony is quite clear that this act has been the most successful civil rights act that has ever been passed by the Congress of the United States. The overwhelming preponderance of the testimony was that the Voting Rights Act has worked. It has provided the franchise to numerous people who were denied the right to vote for one reason or another. It has provided a dramatic increase in the number of minority- elected officials in covered jurisdictions. I think that very clearly demonstrates the need for an extension. The hearings also very clearly showed that the creativity of the human mind is unlimited when it comes to proposing election law changes that are designed to prevent people from voting.'' By extending the VRA for an additional 25 years, H.R. 9 ensures that the gains made by minorities are not jeopardized. Like the preceding reauthorization efforts, this bill has strong support from Republicans and Democrats alike, including that of Speaker Hastert and Minority Leader Pelosi. H.R. 9 is also supported by many prominent religious and civil rights organizations. Mr. Chairman, among the keepsakes of my public service that I most cherish is one of the signing pens President Ronald Reagan used when enacting the 1982 Voting Rights Amendments into law. When considering their vote on the legislation now before the House, I would urge my colleagues to reflect upon President Reagan's eloquent remarks on this occasion: ``Yes, there are differences over how to attain the equality we seek for all our people. And sometimes amidst all the overblown rhetoric, the differences seem to be bigger than they are. But actions speak louder than words. This legislation proves our unbending commitment to voting rights. It also proves that differences can be settled in a spirit of good will and good faith. As I've said before, the right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished. The legislation that I'm signing demonstrates America's commitment to preserving this essential right. I'm proud of the Congress for passing this legislation, and I'm proud to be able to sign it.'' Ronald Reagan, in August of 1982. Mr. Chairman, I am proud to stand here with my colleagues, as I did then, to ensure that voting rights remain protected for an additional 25 years. Let Congress again make America proud by passing this historical and vital legislation without amendment. Remarks on Signing the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982 June 29, 1982.--Well, I am pleased today to sign the legislation extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Citizens must have complete confidence in the sanctity of their right to vote, and that's what this legislation is all about. It provides confidence that constitutional guarantees are being upheld and that no vote counts more than another. To so many of our people--our Americans of Mexican descent, our black Americans--this measure is as important symbolically as it is practically. It says to every individual, ``Your vote is equal; your vote is meaningful; your vote is your constitutional right.'' I've pledged that as long as I'm in a position to uphold the Constitution, no barrier will come between our citizens and the voting booth. And this bill is a vital part of fulfilling that pledge. This act ensures equal access to the political process for all our citizens. It securely protects the right to vote while strengthening the safeguards against representation by forced quota. The legislation also extends those special provisions applicable to certain States and localities, while at the same time providing an opportunity for the jurisdictions to bail out from the special provisions when appropriate. In addition, the bill extends for 10 years the protections for language minorities. President Eisenhower said, ``The future of the Republic is in the hands of the American voter.'' Well, with this law, we make sure the vote stays in the hands of every American. Let me say how grateful I am to these gentlemen up here, the Members of the House and Senate from both sides of the aisle, and particularly those on the Senate Judiciary Committee, for getting this bipartisan legislation to my desk. Yes, there are differences over how to attain the equality we seek for all our people. And sometimes amidst all the overblown rhetoric, the differences tend to seem bigger than they are. But actions speak louder than words. This legislation proves our unbending commitment to voting rights. It also proves that differences can be settled in a spirit of good will and good faith. In this connection, let me also thank all the other organizations and individuals--many who are here today--who worked for this bill. As I've said before, the right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished. The legislation that I'm signing is the longest extension of the act since its enactment and demonstrates America's commitment to preserving this essential right. I'm proud of the Congress for passing this legislation. I'm proud to be able to sign it. And without saying anything further, I'm going to do that right now. [At this point, the President signed the bill.] It's done. Note: The President spoke at 12:15 p.m. at the signing ceremony in the East Room at the White House.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to my distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) with a different view on what is going on there.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 8 minutes to the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, who held all of these hearings to show why this legislation is necessary, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case) to explain why Hawaii does not have a history of discrimination and should not be covered under the Norwood amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, following the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) is always a very tough act, but I would like to reiterate what he so eloquently said. We need the Voting Rights Act, and we need the Voting Rights Act because in the last 25 years the covered jurisdictions have not come clean. Let's look at Georgia. Since 1982, there have been 91 objections, 91 objections submitted by the Department of Justice. And since 2002, there have been seven voting rule changes that were withdrawn by the State because of DOJ objections. Texas, 105 objections imposed by DOJ since 1982, and 14 voting rule proposals were withdrawn by the State because of voting rights concerns in the last 4 years. Mississippi, 112 objections since 1982, and Federal observers have been sent to this State 14 times to monitor elections since 2002, most recently last year. Louisiana, 96 objection since 1982, eight Department of Justice objections to voting rules have been lodged since 2002, most recently in 2005, and 10 voting rule proposals withdrawn by the State in the last 4 years. South Carolina, 73 objections since 1982. North Carolina in the covered jurisdictions, 45 objections since 1982. And Alabama, 46 objections, and Federal observers have been assigned to the State 65 times since 2000 to monitor elections. Arizona, 17 objections since 2002, and Federal observers have been assigned to that State 380 times since 2000 to monitor elections, including 107 since 2004. Now, I think these figures ought to make it very clear that we need this bill, and we need this bill without any of the four amendments that are about ready to be offered. And, finally, before we get into the debate on the amendments, I would like to offer my thanks to the staff people who have helped put together this record, Paul Taylor, the chief counsel of the Subcommittee on the Constitution; Kim Betz, the subcommittee counsel; Stephanie Moore, the Democratic counsel to the Committee on Judiciary and counsel to Mr. Watt; and, most particularly, Philip Kiko, who is chief of staff and general counsel of the committee, who is part of the institutional memory, because he helped me get the Voting Rights Act extension passed and signed in 1982. We put in the work on this, we have done the hearings, the record is replete. We need this law extended, and we need it extended for 25 years. Vote ``yes'' on the bill, ``no'' on the amendments, and let's go down in history as the House that did the right thing.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, the Voting Rights Act coverage formula and the provisions that it triggers have been upheld by the Supreme Court on multiple occasions and not just in 1966. The Supreme Court in 1980 in Rome v. United States, and later in 1999 in Lopez v. Monterey County, upheld the constitutionality of section 5. In particular, in the city of Rome, the court looked at the House Judiciary Committee's finding that ``the recent objections entered by the Attorney General to section 5 submissions clearly bespeak the continuing need to this particular preclearance mechanism.'' Now, there have been objections that have been interposed to submissions that have been made in Georgia since 2000, and that is why we have to have the formula that is in section 5 and the preclearance provisions in section 5 which have been upheld by the Supreme Court. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment guts the Voting Rights Act, and let's make no bones about it. It does so by altering its coverage formula to cover only those jurisdictions in which voter registration and turnout fell below 50 percent in the 2004, 2000, and 1996 Presidential elections. Based on the Census Bureau Current Population Survey, there is not a single State, except Hawaii, with voter registration and turnout below the 50 percent level required by this amendment. That means that only the State of Hawaii in its entirety would be covered, along with random scattershot jurisdictions across the country that do not have the century-long history of discrimination that the covered States do, and which the Supreme Court requires for the application of the preclearance and Federal observer conditions contained in the VRA. The amendment not only guts the bill, but turns the Voting Rights Act into a farce. To give you a sense of the absurdity of this amendment, let's take the example of Montana. In Montana, the amendment would only cover Glacier County, where there has been absolutely no evidence of voting discrimination, but where voter registration and turnout fell below the thresholds established by this amendment. That is the little blue spot on the Canadian border on Mr. Norwood's map. The amendment, however, would not cover Blaine County, where just a few years ago a Federal District Court and a U.S. Court of Appeals found widespread evidence of discrimination against American Indians, who comprised one-third of all of the voters. This amendment would also not cover Big Horn County, where a Federal court documented the virtually complete disenfranchisement of American Indian voters, nor would it apply to several other counties in Montana where voting discrimination has occurred, such as Rosebud County. Under this amendment, similarly absurd results apply in 38 other States. So you might want to check on how this amendment affects your State before deciding whether to vote ``yes'' on it. In addition, the amendment would render the temporary provisions of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. This amendment is designed to make all of the expiring provisions unconstitutional, and it simply guarantees that the Supreme Court of the United States will wipe this act off the books. As recently as 1999, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the current coverage formula in the Voting Rights Act. In 1999, 7 years ago. In Lopez v. Monterey County, the Supreme Court upheld the Voting Rights Act's voting rule preclearance requirement finding that it ``burdens State law only to the extent that the law affects voting in jurisdictions properly designated for coverage.'' By radically altering the coverage formula of the Voting Rights Act in a way that severs its connection to jurisdictions with proven discriminatory histories, this amendment will render H.R. 9 unconstitutional and leave minority voters without the essential protections of the preclearance and the Federal observer requirements central to the VRA. The elimination of these provisions would threaten to destroy the advances of voting rights the VRA has made possible to date and must continue to protect and advance in the future. There is broad agreement on this point. Justice Scalia, in his opinion in the recent Texas redistricting case, joined by the Chief Justice, Justice Alito and Justice Thomas, makes its clear that the Voting Rights Act with its current coverage formula will be upheld as constitutional, and that section 5 of the Voting Rights Act applies only to jurisdictions with a history of official discrimination. The existing formula triggering coverage under the Voting Rights Act is not at all outdated in any meaningful sense of the term, and States covered are not unfairly punished under the coverage formula. Sixteen States are covered in whole or in part under the temporary provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The formula does not limit coverage to a particular region, but encompasses those States and jurisdictions where less than 50 percent of the citizens of voting age population registered or turned out to vote in 1964, 1968 or 1972. But coverage is not, and I repeat ``not'' predicated on these statistics alone. States are not covered unless they applied discriminatory voting tests. And it was this aspect of the formula that brought these jurisdictions with the most serious histories of discrimination under Federal scrutiny. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has held that ``Obviously, the preclearance requirements of the original act and its reauthorization had a much larger purpose than to increase voter registration.'' On the occasion of each reauthorization, Congress reviewed voting progress, including increases in registration and turnout, and the necessity of continuing coverage under the act. The review was no different in 2006. The Judiciary Committee had 12 hearings, called 46 witnesses, and compiled more than 12,000 pages of evidence of continued discrimination in covered jurisdictions. In Georgia alone, 91 objections were interposed by the Justice Department since 1982, including four since 2002. In Texas, 105 objections were interposed. All of these incidents involved voting rule changes that the Department of Justice determined to be discriminatory. Indeed, the reauthorization of this formula in H.R. 9 is based on recent and proven instances of discrimination in voting rights compiled in the Judiciary Committee's 12,000-page record. Moreover, the Voting Rights Act as it exists already includes provisions that allow for the expansion and reduction of covered jurisdictions as necessary, which ensures that the list of covered jurisdictions is appropriately revised and updated. Insofar as voting conditions have improved over the years in the covered jurisdictions, that improvement is due precisely to the Voting Rights Act itself and the requirements preventing discriminatory voting rule changes from going into effect. This amendment would abolish exactly those provisions that are directly responsible for the enhanced voting protections that the VRA has secured for millions of Americans. As a result, the amendment undermines the VRA's goal of ensuring that progress made by minority voters continues and that America never backslides in its protection of minority voting rights. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green) for a unanimous consent request. (Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)