As the Senate completes consideration of this important legislation -- the culmination of many months of legislative activity to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act -- I welcome the President's statement of support today.  It was a long time in coming, and the long way round, but he got there.  The President is right to have spoken of racial discrimination as a wound not fully healed.  We all want our revitalization of the Voting Rights Act we consider today to help in that healing process and in guaranteeing the fundamental right to vote. 

I was reminded today of when the President spoke dramatically last September from New Orleans’ Jackson Square and pledged to confront poverty with bold action.  I look forward to that bold action.  He spoke then of helping our people overcome what he called “deep, persistent poverty,” “poverty with roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America.”  I agree with him.  We must, as the President said that night, “rise above the legacy of inequality.”  That is a shameful legacy that still exists and still needs to be overcome.  The President is right that “the wounds” of racial discrimination need to be fully healed.  In my judgment, based on the record before this Senate, the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is needed to ensure that healing. 

I also welcome the support of others who have come recently to this cause and struggle. I welcome our Senate bill cosponsors who joined us after the companion House bill had already won 390 votes and even those who joined after the Senate bill was successfully voted out of our Committee, 18-0.  It is never too late to join a good cause, and protecting the fundamental right to vote and have Americans' votes count is just such a cause.

Someone who was not late to the struggle but who has been at its forefront since his election to the Senate in 1962 is the senior Senator from Massachusetts. He worked to pass the original landmark Voting Rights Act in 1965.  On this issue he is the Senate's leader.  It has been an honor to work beside him in this important effort.  And work he did. To assemble the record required work.  He came to our hearings, helped organize them, helped assemble the witnesses, and when Senators from the majority were unavailable, he and I proceeded with the permission of our Chairman to chair those hearings. We would not be passing this bill without the overwhelming support that it will have if it had not been for Senator Kennedy.

Of course, we are also honor the senior Senator from Hawaii who likewise voted for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and each of its reauthorizations.  His leadership in these matters is greatly appreciated by this Senator and, I believe, by the Senate.

I also thank the Democratic leader for his help.  Senator Reid stayed focused on making sure this essential legislative objective was achieved.   He worked with us and the Republican leader throughout.  He is a lead sponsor of the legislation and was a key participant at our bicameral announcement on the steps of the Capitol on May 2.  Throughout the process of developing the bill, developing the legislative record and considering the bill, he has never failed to go the extra mile to ensure the success of this effort.

I thank our Chairman and lead Senate sponsor. As I pushed and cajoled and urged action he heard me out. Together with the other active members of the Judiciary Committee, we worked to assemble the necessary record and consider it so that our bill is on a solid factual, legal and constitutional foundation.  I thank each of our cosponsors and, in particular, those who joined us early on, those on the Judiciary Committee, and the Republican leader.

There are too many others who deserve thanks. They include Senator Salazar for his contributions throughout and for his thoughtful initiative to broaden those for whom this bill is named by including Cesar Chavez. I look forward to working with him to make that a reality. To all who have supported this effort I say thank you and know that your real thanks will be in the fulfillment of the promise of equality for all Americans in the years ahead.

I wholeheartedly thank the members of the civil right community. Led by Wade Henderson and Nancy Zirkin at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and by Bruce Gordon and Hilary Shelton of the NAACP and by lawyers like Ted Shaw and Leslie Proll and all the voting rights attorneys who have made the cause of equal justice their lives' work, they have been indispensable to this effort and relentless in their commitment to what is best about America.  I express my appreciation and admiration for all they do to make Congress and America measure up to the promise of our Constitution and the vision that Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King and Cesar Chavez had for America.

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