(Washington, DC) -

Statement from the House Floor
During Consideration of the Westmoreland Amendment
by Rep. Cynthia McKinney

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Many of my colleagues have expressed some bit of surprise at the virulence coming from the republican Members of the Georgia delegation. Let me just say I'm not surprised at all, because I was born in georgia and I live there.  I served in the Georgia Legislature with a few of them.

Let me just also say that just this week the second attempt by the georgia legislature to impose a voter i.d. bill on the people of our state was struck down by the courts [for being] in violation of the Voting Rights Act.  We also learned in 2002, in my own election, with the crossover vote... that crossover voting can be used as effectively as the all-white primary was in days past. 

So we need the Voting Rights Act. We need it because we are looking at the state of georgia, we see what you are doing, and now the nation also sees that the State of Georgia desperately needs to be under the Voting Rights Act because some things still haven't changed.