Pelosi Statement on the New Congressional Report Providing Robust Support for Strengthened Voting Rights Act

Contact: Speaker's Press Office,

202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement to commend the Committee on House Administration on its new report, which provides abundant evidence demonstrating the urgent need for a strengthened Voting Rights Act and affirms Congress' ironclad Constitutional mandate for H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act:

"The new report from the Committee on House Administration proves definitively what Americans and people around the world already know: voters of color across the country are being silenced by partisan forces. With hours of recorded testimony and thousands of pages of data, Congress has the ironclad Constitutional mandate and abundant evidence needed to strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which will help ensure free and fair elections for generations to come. The House will soon act to advance this vital legislation.

"Since the disastrous and dangerous Supreme Court ruling in Shelby v. Holder, which gutted the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, partisan lawmakers have unleashed a brutal, accelerating campaign of hundreds of voter suppression laws across the nation. This new report, led by Chair Zoe Lofgren and Subcommittee Chair G.K. Butterfield, details how these discriminatory state laws – voter roll purges, polling place closures, vicious gerrymandering and more – are threatening to erode our democracy. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act will help combat and prevent brazen voter suppression and safeguard the sanctity of the ballot box.

"As Americans today celebrate the 56th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, which stood for decades as a vanguard of freedom and earned overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress each time it came up for reauthorization, anti-democratic forces continue to wage an all-out assault on the franchise. Today, and every day, we draw inspiration from the immortal words of our beloved John Lewis: ‘Freedom is not a state; it is an act... Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.' Let us honor him by advancing this bill that bears his name, while at the same time continuing to advance the For The People Act, to secure the sacred right to vote for every American."

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