Voting Rights Act Quotes

Racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact. To the contrary, Texas has been found in violation of the Voting Rights Act in every redistricting cycle from and after 1970.

Her [Jurdge Sandra Day O’Connor] judgment has also been critical in protecting our environmental rights. She joined in 5-4 majorities affirming reproductive freedom and religious freedom and the Voting Rights Act.

Americans of our own time – minority and majority Americans alike – need the continued guidance that the Voting Rights Act provides. We have come a long way, but more needs to be done.

This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies.

No one questions the validity, the urgency, the essentiality of the Voting Rights Act.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 laid the foundation for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but it also addressed nearly every other aspect of daily life in a would-be free democratic society.

Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have
to ensure that right.

Having personally watched the Voting Rights Act being signed into law that August day, I can’t begin to imagine how we could have all been so wrong in believing that more Americans would vote once they were all truly free to do so.

It’s time for Congress to act, restore the Voting Rights Act, and take action to prevent voter disenfranchisem ent. As your next Congresswoman, I will stand up to the extremists in the Republican Party to ensure civil rights are protected for everyone.

It has been hard to get my head around how Justice Antonin Scalia rationalizes his decisions. His body blow to the Voting Rights Act was a head scratcher, but at least he was calm when he attempted to justify his odd logic.

The Democrats co-opted the credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But if you go back and look at the history, a larger percentage of Republicans voted for that than did Democrats. But a Democrat president signed it, so they co-opted credit for having passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom.

Parts of the Voting Rights Act are due to expire next year if Congress doesn’t extend them, including the section that guarantees that voting rights will be protected by the federal government.

There is no Constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong – deadly wrong – to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States’ rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.

It was the biggest suppression of voting rights in our country’s history since Jim Crow. And the thread of race runs from the beginning to the end of my book.

From 1965 to 1967, my dad, Jack Gilligan, served in Congress and helped pass landmark laws like the Voting Rights Act.