Washington, D.C. - Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) issued the following statement on President Biden’s remarks on voting rights and the need to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act: 
 
"The right to vote, which countless Americans have fought, marched, and given their lives for, lies at the very core of our democracy. It is fundamental to all our freedoms and it must be protected at all costs. I commend President Biden and Vice President Harris for their efforts to stem the tide of voter suppression laws in our nation, and I join them in calling on the Senate to reform the filibuster rule, a relic of the Jim Crow era, and pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. 
 
"Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, protecting Americans’ right to vote had not been a partisan issue. In 2006, the Senate supported the same principles in the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act when it voted 98-0 to reauthorize the VRA, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush. Yet, that same political party that worked to safeguard this essential right is now leading the charge to suppress it. 

"Now, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s rulings in Shelby County v. Holder and Brnovich v. DNC, Republican lawmakers across the nation have shamelessly accelerated their efforts to deny Americans access to the ballot box.  In 2021 alone, state lawmakers introduced over 440 voter suppression bills in 49 states. My colleagues in the Senate cannot allow a simple procedural rule to stand in the way of combatting this this attack on our democracy. They must act now before it is too late.  
 
"President Biden posed a serious question to the entire United States Senate today: ‘will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice?’ History will not be kind to those who fail to recognize the ongoing threat to voting rights and who refuse to take this opportunity to reverse this injustice.