House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) reacted to the Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday striking down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act by calling on Congress to take action and strengthen the law to protect the voting rights of all Americans.
“In 2006, Democrats and Republicans came together to reauthorize the law, garnering overwhelming bipartisan support in a Republican-led Congress – passing the House by a vote 390-33 and the Senate by a vote of 98-0, then signed into law by President George W. Bush,” she said in a statement. “This year, we must follow in that same tradition, taking the court’s decision as our cue for further action to strengthen this legislation.”
She continued: “Voting rights are essential to who we are as Americans, to the cause of equality, to the strength of our democracy. It is our responsibility to do everything in our power to remove obstacles to voting, to ensure every citizen has the right to vote and every vote is counted as cast. We must secure the most basic privilege of American citizenship: the right to vote.”