Another Blight on American History

Floor Speech

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. And still I rise, Mr. Speaker. I must applaud the gentlewoman from California and associate myself with her remarks.

As I do so, I will remind us that, yes, the Voting Rights Act was signed by Lyndon Johnson. He did sign it in ink; but the truth be told, it was written in blood. It was written in the blood of those who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, the blood of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney. It was signed in ink but written in blood.

This is bigger than that. Yes, this is of paramount importance. It is also about something else that is taking place at the very same time that we are losing our voting rights and many of our Members of Congress. That other thing is seniority. Seniority is under assault in the Congress of the United States of America. It was the Congressional Black Caucus that fought to maintain seniority. If we lose seniority on our watch after the suffering that they went through and all that they did to protect it, what can we say about ourselves?

Seniority, the means by which many of the people who hold committee chairmanships right now who are members of the Congressional Black Caucus, they had those chairpersonships because of seniority.

Seniority has made a difference because seniority has the power. This is a power grab in the sense that it is a power grab to take seats away, but it is also a power grab to take seniority away. When seniority is no longer the means by which we have upward mobility--some things bear repeating. When seniority is no longer the means by which we will have upward mobility, money will rule, and we will lose. We will lose.

Maxine Waters became chair, the only woman ever of any hue to chair the Committee on Financial Services, because of seniority. Bennie Thompson was the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security because of seniority, and the list goes on and on.

My closing words are these: I want my record to show that when seniority was at risk, I did everything that I could to protect it. I am going to fight to protect the seniority system because that is the system that allows us to deliver more goods and services to our communities.

Yes, there are exceptions, Barbara Jordan being one; but exceptions don't make the rule, they prove the rule. Seniority must stand, and I stand with seniority.

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