Thursday, July 20, 2006

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on the Voting Rights Act
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

I join as a United States Senator from Georgia to express my support and to join the United States Senate in our support for the extension of the Voting Rights Act. I come to the well to speak for a few minutes from a different perspective than some. I was born in the south in 1944, educated in its public schools in the 1950's and 1960's. I was in the fourth grade when Brown vs. The Board of Education was ruling in the Supreme Court. I was in high school when the schools of Atlanta, the public schools, were integrated. I went to the University of the Georgia when the first students integrated that institution.

I lived through all the changes that many refer to as history about which they have read. I lived through this, being there seeing the heroes and the challenges and the transition through which the South has gone. Still in speeches today we hear very often about the South and historic times where wrong practices have been righted. But somehow we don’t’ hear about the heroes that made the Voting Rights Act go from a piece of paper and a law to practical reality in the South.

I am proud of the so many citizens in Georgia, black and white, urban and rural, Republican and Democrat, who over the past 41 years have made not only the letter of that law, but the spirit of that law, the spirit of our state – not the least of which is Congressman John Lewis, a man of unquestioned character, and for any who lived during the 1960’s and 1950’s, unquestioned courage. He and I are of different races and different political persuasions, but he is a man whose courage and conviction I honor and pay tribute to.

Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr. of Atlanta, a white mayor of Atlanta in the 1960’s, who through his actions saw to it that the actions passed in Congress were a reality smoothly in our state gained Atlanta the reputation of a city ‘too busy to hate.’ We made a transition in a difficult time. We righted difficult wrongs. We made the letter of the law the spirit of the law.

To Andrew Young, the first African American Mayor of the City of Atlanta, who in following Mayor Sam Massell, who followed Ivan Allen, ensured that those transitions continued in the 1980's, and that voting rights and all rights were the primary responsibility of our government and its leadership.

To Carl Sanders, the Governor of Georgia, who probably lost his chance at a second term because of his courageous stand on behalf of seeing to it that the South continued to make progress.

To Joe Frank Harris from rural Georgia who was a governor in the 1980's, continued in tandem with Andrew Young to see to it that our capital city and our state remained committed to all the provisions of equality in our society.

To attorney generals who in this issue are so important: Republican Mike Bowers who during many years of service to our state as Attorney General time and again saw to it that what was intended by the Voting Rights Act was the practice in our state. And to our current Attorney General today, an African American, Thurbert Baker, who is a tribute to the progress our state has made and an outspoken defender of the Voting Rights Act and our state's intention to ensure that all Georgians of legal residence in our state, regardless of race or ethnicity, have the right to vote.

And to a great Senator who served in this state whose office that I hold now downstairs, Sam Nunn, who during the years of the 1970's and 1980's and early 1990's was a steadfast beacon of support for ensuring that we continued the spirit and the letter of the Voting Rights Act.

And the late United States Senator Paul Coverdell, a Republican from Georgia, who in his term in the Georgia legislature, in its House, and in its Senate over 20 years of service fought tirelessly to ensure that our state delivered on what our state has. And that is the guarantee of equality to all Georgians and the right to vote for every legal citizen.