fact that on the day we re commemorating the sell are a-to-montgomery march the supreme court is deciding part of the voting rights act, arguably the most important part. obviously it s highly ironic. i mean, the debate in the supreme court is still reverberating, and, of course, i m speaking about justice scalia and that outrageous comment about section 5 being a perpetuation of racial entitlement which sounds like it s straight out of the jim crowe talking points. you know, president obama misspoke about the jedi mind meld and you have to wonder at some point if mr. scalia had undergone a lud at the mind melt. he s an originalist but we didn t realize how originalist he was. let s talk about scalia who is starting to sound like an activist judge. here you have a matter settled by the legislative branch and settled in an overwhelming way
know. we marked 150 years of the emancipation proclamation. we just marked 100 years of the women s suffrage march in washington, d.c., and here we are, you know, still fighting the fight about protecting the most precious right that we have in our democracy, the right that is preservative of every other right and it s, you know, it s amazing because, i mean, so many people died for this right to vote, got beaten for the right to vote, and here we are in 2013 still fighting to protect it, and that s a shame. and here you have a few hundred people walking across that bridge just a few days after the historic arguments being made before the supreme court as well over the voting rights act passed in 1965, specifically article v. that s right. so, you know, we saw the supreme court looking at this case deciding whether or not section v, which really prevent
special privilege from the courts when we re talking about changes in elections. times change and i think it s a veiled issue for the justices to raise. but i also want to point out in your interview earlier with the reverend martin luther king s daughter earlier, the ceremony today is so important to not only remember how far we ve come but, as she said so eloquently, make sure we don t go back to where we came from. i would add to what alice said. hear a lot about the rhetoric and heard a lot about singling states. all states, all 50, are singled out in another section of the voting rights act, section ii. section v does singling and section ii does singling. states are not so special that they don t sometimes have obligations to human rights, and we are all singled out and i m happy to live in a state, new york, singled out under section ii. my main priority is human rights and people getting to vote, not worried by b which state kiries a bit of an extra burden. well, to visit a
and now the high court has stepped in to say, you know what, maybe all of you senators and all of you congressman maybe got it wrong. that s always the question the court faces when it seeks to undo the democratic will of the legislature, and there is supposed to be in legal jargon a very high bar for doing that, and when you have, as vice president biden pointed out, a law that has been reauthorized by a man who ran for president on a segregationist dixieocrat platform, along with many other republicans who i say deserve credit on this issue. the republican party moved a tremendous amount to support and reauthorize the voting rights act. whatever reasons they did it. it was the right thing and we see at least there s a potentially a bloc of the supreme court if you believe the premises who don t buy into that, haven t moved along with what i would call mainstream conservative thought and are now saying something very concerning which is that the very section of the voting rights act
congress of the united state which shall consist of a senate and house of representatives. i now yield to the gentleman from michigan, mr. wahlberg. section ii. the house of representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. bill: and on they shall continue taking turns there. martha: a little bit of civics class from the house of representatives. bill: we wanted to share that with you as it gets underway. u.s. constitution, only the second time on record its been read on the floor of the house, happening right now. 6 minutes past. martha: new word that secretary of state will hillary clinton is