LEADER JEFFRIES STATEMENT ON VOTING RIGHTS ACT ANNIVERSARY

Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries released the following statement: 

Sixty-one years ago, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, striking a decisive blow against the inhumanity of Jim Crow and protecting the right to vote. It remains one of the most significant legislative accomplishments in American history. We stand on the shoulders of giants like John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King Jr. and Amelia Boynton who dedicated their lives to ensuring our country could live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all.

The Trump administration and their co-conspirators in the Congress, on the Supreme Court and in state legislatures across the country, have revived the Jim Crow-like tactics of the past. Far-right Republican extremists are determined to turn back the clock. They continue to peddle baseless conspiracy theories about our elections, attack mail-in voting and redraw congressional maps to decimate Black representation. 

The right to vote is non-negotiable. House Democrats will deploy the largest voter protection effort in modern American history to make sure that the American people can choose their representatives, not the other way around. We will take back the House of Representatives, pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and end the era of voter suppression once and for all.