Cori Bush — Congresswoman Bush Remarks on Voter Supression in the District of Colombia

Thank

Speaker 1: you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here. St. Louis and I are here today in opposition to Republicans' continuing assault on our democracy and in support of political self-determination for the residents of Washington, D.C. Let's get one thing straight

at the top

Speaker 1: The idea that Republicans care about election integrity

Speaker 2: in D.C. is a joke

Just

Speaker 2: two years ago, I was barricaded in my office right here in D.C. This is the party of insurrection whose supporters attack the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow, what, a democratic election. When Republicans talk about election integrity, they're really talking about voter suppression. They're talking about carrying on the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow by actively disenfranchising black and brown communities through legislation like the American Confidence in Elections Act to undermine voter access and fair and impartial election administration. And they're talking about maintaining anti-democratic control over D.C., which has had a significant black population since its creation

Was

Speaker 2: majority black from the late 1950s through the 2011 and remains majority non-white. The United States is the only democracy in the world that denies the residents of its capital voting representation in the national legislature. D.C. residents have been demanding voting representation in Congress for more than 200 years. And

in a

Speaker 3: 2016 referendum... 86% of DC residents voted for statehood. Republicans want to

Speaker 1: pretend that DC statehood is a power grab for the Democrats. A power grab for the Democratic Party. They say it's a political ploy to gain seats in the

Senate. But

Speaker 1: that just doesn't really make sense. So Ms. Weiser, if DC became a

state

Speaker 1: will Republicans

Speaker 3: be forbidden from running in its congressional elections

Absolutely

Speaker 4: not. Okay, so they can

Speaker 1: still run, okay, got it. Let me ask you, Ms. Weiser, in a democracy, should political rights be conditioned

Speaker 5: on who voters might elect

no

Speaker 6: absolutely not that would be inappropriate

it

Speaker 7: would be inappropriate

thank

Speaker 8: you so DC statehood is not about

Speaker 1: one party or the other it's about freedom and it's about political self-determination it's about overcoming the white supremacist violence of voter suppression in this here historically black city it's about the voices of real people whose lives and whose Struggles Matter

So

Speaker 1: Republicans should stop the hypocrisy. Again, I remember being barricaded in my office trying to figure out how to protect my staff. And my words were, if they come to this

door, we bang into

Speaker 1: the end

And I

Speaker 1: meant that if you touch my staff, because they didn't sign up for this. They didn't sign

up. to be

Speaker 1: in a position to where their bodies are on the line. They signed up to do a work for the people of St. Louis. So stop the hypocrisy. Stop talking about don't tread on me when that's exactly what that

Speaker 2: party is doing to the people of D.C. Stop trampling on their lives. Stop trampling on their freedoms. Stop trampling on our democracy. Stop holding D.C. hostage. And let Congress, once and for all

grant the

Speaker 2: people of D.C. what they've been long demanding. Statehood. Thank you, and I use it