James Clyburn: GOP Repeating Post-Jim Crow 'Creative Devices' To Suppress Votes Of People Of Color

4 months ago

At a House Democratic press briefing, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) spoke about voting rights.

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Transcript

00:00to Terry Sewell.

00:03The person who needs no introduction, none other than Congressman Jim Clyburn.

00:09Thank you very much, Terry.

00:13I was thinking a couple of days ago, I heard a reporter ask or say to someone,

00:22thank you so much for the favor of your time.

00:28And I thought about that word favor as opposed to freedom.

00:35The fact of the matter is what we seem to be getting from our friends on the other side

00:41of the aisle are a lot of favors and very little freedom.

00:50I can remember when my parents first got the right to cast an effective vote.

00:59It may sound strange, I remember that.

01:02Because up until I was eight years old in South Carolina,

01:10the Democratic primary was a white only private club,

01:16which meant that the majority of the citizens of that state

01:23could not cast an effective vote.

01:27You were free to vote in the general election,

01:30but the only meaningful election at that time was the Democratic primary.

01:36And so you can imagine what it was like in my household

01:41when my parents first got the right to vote.

01:45We thought that it was a battle that once won will never be lost.

01:55But what happened after the institution of Jim Crow,

02:00a lot of creative devices came online that made the vote ineffective

02:09for those who were people of color.

02:13And what we see today is a repetition of those creative devices.

02:20How do you make it felonious to assist someone with a ballot?

02:33It is beyond me that our colleagues cannot see the fallacy in that.

02:41And what a threat that is to the freedoms that we hold dear.

02:45There's nothing more fundamental to the freedoms of a democracy

02:50than the right to cast a fair, unfettered, effective vote.

03:00I also remember when I first met John Lewis.

03:04We were 19-year-old college students fighting,

03:09as he would often say, to get off the back of the bus,

03:13into voting lines, into voting precincts,

03:17and to become full-fledged citizens in this great society.

03:23But as it happened, 13 years after the Civil War,

03:30what has happened today is very reminiscent of us using creative devices

03:39to make the vote ineffective, if at all.

03:46This bill is designed to do exactly what the United States Supreme Court says we should do.

03:54And that is bring forth a formula by which we can create a voting rights law

04:06that will be fair and effective.

04:10We've done exactly what the Supreme Court asked us to do,

04:13and we've introduced that bill now, this time for the fifth time.

04:17Three times it's been filibustered in the House,

04:20one time filibustered in the Senate, and one time it died in the House.

04:25This is the fifth time attempting to do what the Supreme Court said should be done,

04:31but our colleagues on the other side of the aisle see it differently.

04:37I would hope that with the introduction of this bill,

04:42that they will find it within themselves to allow a vote on the floor of the House.

04:51You're not asking about a vote for it, just put it on the floor

04:56so that we can cast a fair, unfettered, effective vote.

05:04And we'd be glad, unlike the other side, we'd be glad to live by the results.

05:09With that, I yield back.

05:11Thank you, sir.

James Clyburn: GOP Repeating Post-Jim Crow 'Creative Devices' To Suppress Votes Of People Of Color

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