On August 6^th, we witnessed the 40^th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. On this very day, back in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. Now, 40 years later, we are here to commemorate, and I say with some hesitancy, celebrate, this Act.

Now, being from the great State of Florida, I remember back when I was elected to Congress in 1992. It had been 129 years since an African American (Josiah Thomas Walls), had represented my State on the federal level. Josiah served three terms, promoting the cause of black education, including a bill to grant one million acres of land for the college, known today as Florida A&M, my undergraduate alma mater.

Now, between the era of Reconstruction and 1992, there were NO African American Members from Florida, not one! Yet, after we filed numerous lawsuits in protest, which were mainly based on the premises laid out in the Voting Rights Act, in 1992, three African Americans were elected to Congress: Congresswoman Carrie Meek, Congressman Alcee Hastings, and myself. Presently, there are now 43 Members of The Congressional Black Caucus.

Now if you ask me why the Voting Rights Act is just as important today as it was 40 years ago, let me answer that with one word: the coup d’etat that took place right in my home state of Florida in 2000. What happened in Florida is simply disgraceful:

27,000 ballots were discarded, simply thrown out, right in my congressional district (Florida’s third) because of faulty machines. It should come as no surprise that the faulty machines were placed in precincts in African American neighborhoods, 7,8,9 and 10, where 95% of the residents vote Democrat.

And the long list of voting rights violations goes on and on:

During the 2000 elections, Florida Governor Jeb Bush spent $4 million of taxpayer money to purge a list of some 40,000 suspected felons from the rolls across the state, giving zero consideration to the accuracy of the list. Later press reports, supported by senior staff e-mails from within the Florida Department of State, later revealed that many of those removed from the list were, in fact, eligible voters, who were wrongfully removed from Florida's voter rolls and, subsequently, denied their lawful right to vote.

And just recently back in August, 2004, right before the 2004 elections, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers were accused of intimidating elderly members of Orlando's African-American community, in yet another attempt to take away their fundamental right to vote.

Arguably the most striking features of the Voting Rights Act were Section 2, which bans racial discrimination in voting nationwide, and Sections 4 and 201, which ban literacy tests nationwide. Now, particularly for my state of Florida, the most important temporary provisions are Section 5, which requires certain state and local governments (covered jurisdictions) to “pre-clear” proposed changes in voting or election procedures with either the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and Section 203, which requires that certain state and local jurisdictions provide assistance in languages other than English to voters who are not literate or fluent in English. In 2007, Section 5 is set to expire. Given the behavior of the state of Florida during and after the 2000 elections, I cannot overemphasize the importance of this provision’s reauthorization.

In the aftermath of the 2000 elections, when the President of The United States was swept into power following a controversial Supreme Court decision to forego a recount, I wholeheartedly believe today that the importance of the Voting Rights Act is as important today as it was 40 years ago when it was first signed into law.

And it is clear to me that the Voting Rights Act not only needs to be reauthorized, but improved, and made even stronger, to face the issues that we face today. There are still many things that need to be addressed, and you can all rest assured that my colleagues and I in the Congressional Black Caucus will be fighting to make sure they are included in the upcoming year.